


Whiteout

by maddienole



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Car Accidents, Drunk Klaus Hargreeves, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Five is a good brother, Gen, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Mild Gore, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Protective Siblings, Swearing, so is klaus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25924978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maddienole/pseuds/maddienole
Summary: First came the drinking, then the 2 a.m phone call.Now the car is wrecked, Five is hurt (badly), and they're stuck in the middle of nowhere during a snowstorm.Klaus isn't having the best of days.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 289
Kudos: 1021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I show my favorite characters I appreciate them by constantly making them suffer. 
> 
> Also disclaimer for multiple F-bombs.

There were so many things Five _could_ be doing at two in the morning.

Sleeping would be the obvious choice, but that activity has been hit or miss over the last forty or so years.

Reading was another option - plenty of good books must be available. Movies, television, songs, etc., if he wanted to fulfill some sort of pop culture quota. Even learning a hobby like sewing or cooking or instrument playing.

The point is, what Five _didn’t_ want to be doing at two in the morning was freezing his ass off in a car to go and pick up his perpetually disappointing brother from whatever bar or club he stumbled into this time.

See, he ignored the first call. It was a fair assumption to make that his _\- almost assuredly_ \- drunk sibling had probably butt dialed him on accident or perhaps even engaged in a prank of some sort. He ignored the second call as well, intent on not giving Klaus the satisfaction of even a _second_ of his time.

Then the third call came.

Five wasn’t naturally a nervous person per say, but there comes a point where that twinge of worry at the back of his mind begins to fester into something that will follow him around until he does something to abate it.

And so he answered.

No, it wasn’t shocking in the slightest that Klaus was, in fact, drunk off his ass. Nor did it shock him that he was being asked to leave the comfort of his own home to come pick him up at two in the morning. What shocked him was that Five was the one that Klaus turned to _first._

Not team-mom Allison or Luther (whom Five liked to call “Captain White Bread” in his youth).

No, Klaus called _him_.

The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Perhaps it was a product of their childhoods. See, Luther and Diego spent most of it - _at least the parts Five was there for_ \- arguing over...well, _anything_ really. Allison was attached to Luther by the hip, and poor Ben somehow always got stuck in the middle. Vanya was never around (obviously) which left Five and Klaus as something of a passive audience to their family’s chaos. Sometimes Ben would escape from whatever jockstrap measuring contest Luther and Diego were engaging in this time, but a fair portion of Five’s childhood involved Klaus being at his side.

So _yes_ , maybe it shouldn’t be shocking that Five was the first sibling he’d go for in this type of situation.

The thought would warm his dear old heart if not for the fact that it was utterly freezing outside and his hands might be frozen to the steering wheel. He tried calling Klaus again (several times), but it had gone straight to voicemail. Either his dearest brother was ignoring him, or his phone had run out of charge.

Five favored the latter.

It was lucky then that Klaus had sent him his location before his cellular device had started pushing up daises.

Maybe it _wasn’t_ so lucky that he was almost forty minutes away from the Hargreeves mansion. Or that it was snowing buckets. Or that Five had lost any and all feeling in his legs.

He tried calling once more for luck, but finally ended up turning on the radio as a means of breaking the silence. There was the nagging concern of his brother’s safety, but that also came with the realization that there was nothing really that he could do until he got there. Teleporting was out of the question. Five had never been to that location before, and trying to jump to things out of his direct sight line was hit or miss at best. Not that it would matter anyway. Even if he _did_ somehow manage to teleport to wherever his idiot brother ended up, there was the problem of getting him back home. Teleporting himself some forty-odd miles would be hard enough; doing it with two people was borderline impossible.

So, the car it was. The snow wasn’t making things much easier, but Five supposed that was to be expected in January. The roads were slick and his sight was limited.

Perfect conditions for a road trip.

He played around with the radio for a bit, trying to sift through the channels and channels of static. Modern music wasn’t really his type of thing (too computerized), so he settled on an 80’s pop-rock station that occasionally went in and out with the snow beating down on him. Poor reception aside, the soothing tones of Hall and Oates settled him down a bit, or at least enough to steady his hand on the wheel. Driving in snow wasn’t an ideal situation in the slightest. Even as a child, Five was never a fan of the cold. His room had more blankets than any other, and it became a nightly routine of his during the wintertime to swaddle himself in as many as possible.

He _did_ eventually reach wherever the hell Klaus told him he was - _some forty goddamn minutes away from the house_ \- and now Five was burdened with the task of actually _finding_ him. From what he could tell, this area just looked like a cluster of bars and clubs, with half-dressed people walking in groups to wherever the nearest heat source was.

_Who the hell goes clubbing when it’s 30 degrees outside?_

Five was in the rather unfortunate situation of being simultaneously too old for this shit and too young to actually go into any of these places. If he was going to try to get Klaus out of whatever bar his drunk ass had ended up in, he was going to have a hard time convincing the bouncer that his almost fourteen year old body was a product of a miscalculation, not of a teenager trying to rub up on college students and burnouts.

It was lucky then, that his search didn’t last long.

“Baby brother, you came!”

The sound was unmistakably Klaus’s, and Five turned around to see his younger (older?) brother ambling towards him down the sidewalk.

This...was going to be a long night.

“How many times do I have to tell you,” Five growled, a headache already forming. “I am almost fifty-nine years old....”

Klaus leaned in for a hug before unceremoniously plopping onto the cement as Five took a step backwards.

He sighed, rubbing his temples in frustration.

“What are you even doing out here, Klaus?”

“Oh, little old me? You know....I’m here for a good time, not a long time.”

“You couldn’t fuck yourself up somewhere closer to home?”

“Well, I know this guy who has a brother who has a friend that...”

“ _Klaus_....” Five cut in icily.

“...owns a club that was serving free drinks....”

He grabbed his larger brother’s arm and started hauling him towards the car. Sure, it was natural for young people to want to party, but Klaus wasn’t an ordinary person. He had a history of abusing drugs and alcohol. Five couldn’t lie and say that it wasn’t disheartening to see his brother backpedal back into this life, even if it was only once in a blue moon. At least Klaus had to decency to call him and get help, even if it was almost three a.m.

God, he was tired.

“Why’re you insucha rush, little dude,” Klaus slurred as Five shoved him in the back seat.

“I don’t know if you know this - _and never call me ‘little dude’ again if you value your life_ \- but it is fucking cold outside and I would like to go to bed at some point.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“What time ‘zit again?”

“How on earth do you _not_ know....”

Five exhaled sharply, slamming the door shut.

“Actually, you know what? It doesn’t matter. You’re _not_ dead, so I’ve considered that a win for tonight.”

“Wait, if we won do we get a prize?”

If Five could scream without drawing attention to himself, he would. Instead, he kicked the curb as hard as he could in an effort to get some of the pent-up annoyance out. It probably would have hurt if not for the fact that his foot was already numb.

“Five, why’re ya kicking...”

“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered, turning the key in the ignition.

If the snow was bad before, it was even worse now. It came down in sheets, making Five’s ability to see damn near impossible. Apparently there was a car accident on the route he had come in on, so the GPS routed them onto a different road.

A much more.... _scenic_ route, to put it lightly.

It didn’t help that he had Klaus in the back, who apparently found that keeping quiet was too hard a task. Five turned the radio up even louder, but the music at this point was being punctuated with too much static to be listenable.

Maybe....maybe it was a good thing, right? Loud music could distract him from the road, and honestly, Five needed all the help he could get. It had gotten to the point where he was just praying and hoping he was going in a straight line. All of his senses said to stop; to pull over and wait it out, but it was so goddamn cold outside and just the thought of being stuck alone with a drunken Klaus was aggravating his headache even worse.

_“I told you I can handle it, Ben....”_

_“No! I don’t care...”_

_“....you’re not my Dad....”_

“Can you two converse when we’re off the road, please?” Five hissed, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.

_“No I’m not gonna tell him....”_

“Tell me what, Klaus?”

“Nothin’....”

_“Klaus....”_

“Found a gun,” he giggled.

“You.... _what_?”

“A gun, Five. You know? That thing you use to shoot people? Why’d ya bring a gun with you? Why’d you put it under the seat...”

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

Okay, so Five _was_ a bit neurotic. It was his nature to be so. It was second nature for him to bring one for emergencies, and technically _this_ counted as an emergency. What he didn’t count on, however, was his plastered brother actually digging under the seat to find it. Five could feel his heart rate skyrocketing.

He turned around quickly to see his idiot brother swinging it around his finger.

_“Klaus,” _he hissed. “Put it down before you hurt yourself. Or worse, _me_.”__

____

“Awww Fivey, now you sound like Benny boy,” he pouted, giving him the lip.

____

“Dammit Klaus, I’m....”

____

He saw cut off by the sudden shaking of the car as it went over a bunch of rocks.

____

_Shit._

____

Five swerved back on the road quickly, trying to catch his breath.

____

“ _Klaus_ ,” he repeated slowly. “Give me the gun, please.”

____

“I’ll have you know that I’m a certified adult and I can handle...”

____

“Klaus I said give me the goddamn gun!” he cut in hastily.

____

“But _I_ found it!” he replied like a petulant child.

____

Five tried controlling his breathing, controlling his _anger,_ but dammit if he wasn’t tired and cold and just _fucking pissed off_.

____

He turned around again and tried yanking the gun out of his brother’s grasp.

____

_“Hey, not fair....”_

____

_“I’m trying to get us home in one piece, you dolt...”_

____

_“I’ll be fine, dad....”_

____

_“Just give me the....”_

____

_“.....but I don’t want...”_

____

_“....and I don’t care....”_

____

“....Five?”

____

_“....what you think because...”_

____

“Five!”

____

_“....I am the one in charge....”_

____

“Five, look out!”

____

Maybe if he had kept both hands on the wheel, he wouldn’t have been slowly swerving off of the road.

____

Maybe if he had his eyes in front of him, he could have noticed that they weren’t _on_ the road anymore.

____

Maybe if he wasn’t focusing on getting the gun from his brother, he would have been able to stop the car’s forward momentum.

____

Maybe.

____

Five whipped around at his brother’s warning - just in time to get a glimpse of the tree that they plummeted into. It sounded like….like crushing an aluminum can between your hands. The crunching of the metal and the breaking of the glass and…and was that pain? A wetness, of some sort. Everything was happening too fast, or was it too slow? He could hear Klaus yell something – _he didn’t know what_ – but it sounded urgent. Before Five was able to recognize what was happening, the car came to a halt and his neck snapped forward, plunging his whole world into darkness.

____

____


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh look at that, I've been impaled."
> 
> \- Five (probably)

Klaus was twelve, maybe thirteen, when he decided to steal father’s car and take it out for a joyride. Maybe it was an act of rebellion, or a scream for help, or perhaps he was just stupid and bored. Regardless, father had many cars, and he certainly wouldn’t miss one of them, right?

There was, of course, the small problem that Klaus didn’t actually _know_ how to drive. Or, at least, drive _well_. It started out fine enough - _he was driving mostly straight, after all_ \- but one miscalculation and an uneven road later, he somehow ended up slamming into a fence.

Now, the car was _fine_ , thank you very much.

But the fence?

Klaus would tell you it was ugly looking anyways and he was actually doing the world a favor by knocking it over. He was entirely uninjured himself, though the car did have some scratches where the paint came off.

But that wasn’t what he was worried about. It wasn’t himself or the car or the fence. He was worried about what came after.

The consequences of him being rash and stupid.

See, back then he had father to deal with.

So what did he have now?

A headache, that’s one thing. He tried opening his eyes, but everything just.... _hurt_. His legs, his arms, his chest. Every breath he took left him with a sharp stabbing sensation.

But there was nothing worse than his head. Klaus had been hungover before, but this must have been something else. He blinked open his eyes - _slowly, mind you_ \- and all he could see was a dark blur in front of him. He could feel something trickling down his face that originated from his hairline. He wiped it away to find his fingers stained with red.

Fantastic.

Trying to piece together what had happened to him wasn’t the easiest of tasks. Klaus couldn’t see very well, and it was utterly freezing outside. His memory was going in and out, and _everything just fucking hurt...._

_“Klaus, you’re up!”_

Ah. At least Benny-boy made it.

He tried turning around to face him but ended up squeezing his eyes shut again as the nausea made its way up his throat.

Wow, did he feel like shit.

_“Oh, thank god. You’ve been out for like an hour and I’ve been trying to wake...”_

“What the hell happened?” he mumbled, eyes still screwed tightly shut.

_“You don’t....? The car, Klaus. You guys crashed....”_

“You guys? Who.....?” Klaus whipped around quickly, much too quickly. His stomach performed a somersault inside of him, and soon all of the mixed drinks and canned Beefaroni that still resided in his digestive tract ended up on the snowy ground.

“I think I’m dying,” he moaned, clutching his stomach.

_“Klaus, dammit! Pull yourself together!”_

He blinked open his eyes to see his brother towering above him, a look of....was it anger? Fear? Perhaps a combination of both, plastered on his face. Ben generally had a calm disposition, which meant that something bad must’ve gone down.

“Why are you looking at me like that? And what the hell happened?”

_“I told you, there was a crash. And Five....”_

Five!

Klaus struggled to his feet, trying to ignore the pounding pain in his skull. The car was.... _oh shit._

The thing was totaled. The entire front end was smashed in, every window was busted, and the tree’s gnarly branches utterly decimated the windshield. It all came back to him in a rush - the drinking, the partying, calling Five, his phone dying.

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

“Ben, is he still....? Where’s....?”

_“Front seat. But Klaus he’s....not in good shape.”_

Klaus wanted to vomit again.

He made his way over to the front end, peering inside.

_“He’s been awake on and off. He’s lost a fair amount of blood. I don’t think....”_

Ben trailed off, and Klaus was trying his best not to let his legs give out.

Five was....oh, he looked _bad._

It wasn’t the bruises or the arm that was bent in such a way that arms weren’t meant to go. It wasn’t how utterly pale Five looked that made Klaus want to cry.

It was the blood. The tree branches did more than just break the window.

It broke _him._

 _Impaled,_ he supposed, would be the better word for it. Right in the side. The blood soaked through his shirt and down the sides of his pants onto the seat of the car.

If there was one thing that went right in the universe, it was the fact that his brother - _his baby brother_ \- was at least still breathing. Okay, he wasn’t much a baby anymore, but his feelings of protectiveness that stemmed from when they were kids never faded over the years. The slight rise and fall of his chest was barely noticeable, but it was still there.

Klaus could feel the tears forming.

Oh, he fucked up. He fucked up bad.

“Five?” he whispered, gently stroking his cheek.

A soft moan greeted him as the smaller Hargreeves opened his eyes.

“You’re awake?” he mumbled. “About time.”

Five’s eyes had a slightly glazed look about them, marking a distinct contrast from his regularly scheduled ‘ _I’m better than you_ ’ expression that used to drive Luther and Diego up a wall.

“Five I...I don’t....”

“Don’t what?”

_“Klaus, you need to...”_

“Shut up, Ben!” he hissed, wiping away a stray tear rolling down his cheek.

_“.....get him out of the car....”_

“What’s he saying?” Five asked weakly.

“And how would you like me to do that?” Klaus growled at Ben’s direction. “Yank the whole branch out of him?”

“No!” both of his brothers said in unison.

_“Do you want him to bleed out?”_

“I’ll bleed out...”

Klaus put his face in his hands, stifling a sob.

“This is all _my_ fault,” he murmured.

He felt a hand grasp his arm. A warm, sticky hand.

“It’s not your fault,” Five said softly. “At least, not entirely. I should have been paying attention to the road.”

Klaus exhaled, trying to pull himself together. Even though it had stopped snowing, the cold was biting at him from all angles. The mush beneath him was soaking into his socks, sending a chill up his whole body. They couldn’t stay out here.

He took his brother’s bloody hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“I’ll get you out of there, okay? I promise.”

A second of silence passed, and Klaus was afraid that Five was collating some snappish response.

But instead he gave him a soft smile.

“I know you will,” he finally whispered.

Klaus sniffled, turning to Ben.

_“Remember that pocket knife you keep on you? Use that to get cut the branch. Don’t take it out of Five yet. I’ll go look for shelter.”_

“What would I do without you, Benny Boy?”

_“Die, probably?”_

Klaus shook his head, stifling a laugh.

_“And Klaus?”_

“Yeah?”

Ben turned towards Five still form.

_“Keep him awake, okay? Talk, sing, do a jig, it doesn’t matter as long as he’s interacting with you in some way.”_

“Got it, bro.”

He watched Ben stalk off in the distance, hoping he would come across some form of civilization that might be able to help them before they froze.

Klaus focused back on Five, who was leaning against the headrest with half lidded eyes.

“Hey little dude, let’s not do the whole sleeping thing, okay?”

 _That_ woke him up.

“ _Don’t_ call me little dude,” he said with a glare, or at least what _looked_ like a glare but ended up as more of a pout.

Klaus smiled.

“Ah, it worked. What should I call you next? Shorty? Shortstack? Fun-sized?”

“Klaus...”

“....Thumbelina? Lowrider?”

“I get the point!”

Klaus bent down, procuring the pocketknife from his jeans.

“Just trying to keep you alive.....”

Five raised an eyebrow.

“.....munchkin.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

He began to saw through the branch, which luckily wasn’t large. He could wrap his whole hand around it, though it was still too thick to simply just snap. He tried talking - sports, music, tv - whatever else he could think of with his concussed brain. Klaus tried to ignore the spots that were floating around in his vision, or the chest pain that was steadily growing worse. He figured he must have cracked a couple of ribs, perhaps maybe having even broken them. But he didn’t have time to think about that right now.

He had to think about Five.

His smallest brother was slurring his words in a way that Klaus didn’t like, and - _for lack of better phrasing_ \- was being too _nice_. Having gone almost twenty minutes without Five insulting him was making Klaus more nervous than he’d like to let on.

“Hey Pee-Wee, why don’t you talk about some of that math stuff that you spend so much time doing?”

If Klaus was expecting some scathing response, he didn’t get one. Five blinked his eyes open, letting out a soft moan of discomfort.

“Cold,” he murmured.

Klaus sighed.

“I....I know, kid. Ben is looking for some place we might be able to go. Just hold on, alright?”

“Not a kid.”

“And I’m not really an adult, yet here we are.”

He sawed through the last of the branch, snapping it in two. Klaus didn’t like the fact that part of it was still jutting out of Five’s side, but he also had to acknowledge that there was no way for him to feasibly pull it out and staunch the blood flow in time for Five not to....well, _die._

Five looked down to observe his mess of an abdomen, prodding at the branch as gently as possible.

“Well this could have gone better,” he said tiredly.

_Could it have?_

“I’ll never drink again,” Klaus asserted, noting that his headache seemed to have been slowly getting worse throughout this whole ordeal.

“Sure.”

Klaus frowned.

“Hey pipsqueak, have a little faith in your _dear_ older br-“

_“Guys I found something!”_

There was perhaps no more beautiful sound in the universe. Ben came scrambling down the hillside at a speed Klaus wasn’t sure a ghost was even able to accomplish.

“Benny-boy!” he exclaimed, rising to his feet. “Please tell me you’ve found people....”

_“Klaus...”_

“....with a heater and a cell-phone....”

_“Klaus!”_

“Actually, doesn’t Five have a phone with him?”

“Smashed,” his smallest brother mumbled.

_“Are you even listening to me?”_

“See, I don’t like these accusations that you are throwing around, dear Benjamin. Of _course_ I’ve been listening. You’ve found civilization!”

He could see something pass through Ben’s eyes as he shifted nervously.

_“Well, there’s no people, but....”_

“What’s he saying?” Five asked.

“Wait what?”

_“I’ve found a farm. Or...well, I think it’s a farm or a cabin of some sort. It’s not terribly big but it should at least shield you from the snow.”_

Well that was.... disappointing.

“So no people?” Klaus asked weakly, glancing back at Five.

_“No people. But Klaus...”_

“He’s _dying_ Ben...”

_“There is a first aid kit in there. It’s not much, but there is a needle and some thread...”_

“Ben....” Klaus cut in, feeling his heart drop into his stomach.

_“....so you can stitch the wound...”_

“But...I...I don’t know how...”

“ _What’s_ he saying?” Five repeated, slightly louder than the last.

Klaus found that he was having trouble breathing.

“Ben’s found a cabin of some sort.”

“With people?”

“No people. But a first aid kit.”

Klaus turned back to Ben.

“How far away is it?

_“A little less than a mile.”_

“But that’s so....”

 _“Do you want Five to die?”_ Ben said sharply.

Klaus exhaled, wiping another tear that escaped from his eye.

“No,” he whispered. “I won’t let him.”

_“Then you’ll have to carry him. Come on.”_

Klaus nodded, bending down to scoop his smallest brother in his arms.

God, Five was light. Far too light. But Klaus wasn’t the strongest, and combined with some cracked ribs and an agonizing headache, this journey was going to be far from simple.

Looking out at the frozen wilderness ahead of him, Klaus held onto Five just a little tighter as they made their way forward. It was all to easy to die out here, he realized.

But given the circumstances, what choice did they have?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They started from the bottom and....oh crap, how did they get even lower?

There was never a time when Five wasn’t the smallest one in the family.

Sure, Klaus has always been skinny, but what he lacked in weight he made up for in height. Luther and Allison were always tall for their age, while Diego and Vanya were very much average - though Vanya’s growth seemed to have stopped after puberty. Ben was short as a child, but he was sturdy in places that Five simply wasn’t.

That wouldn’t have bothered Klaus much if it weren’t for the special treatment Five seemed to get from it. Why did he have to suffer through cooked broccoli meal after meal when Five got to engorge himself on marshmallow and peanut butter sandwiches?

He wanted to cry favoritism, but Luther made it clear that _he_ was father’s favorite - _he was number one after all_ \- and that the rest of them should follow his lead if they wanted to find themselves in father’s good graces. But when all was said and done, Luther still had to eat his veggies like the rest of Reginald’s _posse_.

Klaus had asked Five about it once, why father was so lenient with his food consumption compared to the rest of them. Apparently it came down to the functionality of their powers. Jumping through space time wasn’t quite as easy as little Five made it out to be, and he required a high calorie intake to sustain himself through father’s frequent trainings. Five was perhaps the only sibling in the academy that could ‘run out’ of power if too much was used - _unfortunate, but not an entirely uncommon occurrence_ _to say the least_ \- which was why he had to privilege of eating whatever junk pleased him.

So why peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches?

Because Five was a picky little bugger, that’s why.

Klaus wasn’t sure why he was thinking about this stuff now, maybe it was because he had never actually _carried_ Five before. He never knew how skinny his brother was under several layers of clothing, or how difficult a time he had keeping weight on when his powers took so much energy out of him. He never knew until he felt how _light_ he was in his arms. See, Five didn’t _feel_ thirteen- teenagers certainly weighed more than this, right? It had been a while since Klaus was a teen himself, but he swore he was bigger than this scrawny little thing pressed up against his chest. Regardless, maybe if he had known about Five’s eating problems back then, he wouldn’t have been so jealous.

But now wasn’t the time to think about such trivialities.

Klaus swore it had gotten colder outside since he had awoken, though this might just be a product of him sobering up from the plentiful amount of mixed drinks that he had consumed not several hours ago. Alcohol had a funny way of making him feel entirely less cold then he probably should be feeling, but as of now, Klaus couldn’t really feel _anything_ below his ankles as his feet sunk into the mushy ground. The cold had seeped through his socks to his feet and up his legs, not to mention the constant wind that was sending flurries of snow at his face and neck.

If he survived this, he was moving to Florida.

Ben had told him this cabin was less than a mile away, but it just felt so much longer when you had to trudge through snow while carrying a dead weight.

If it was even possible, Five had grown even more pale during their journey. His smallest brother had burrowed himself in Klaus’s neck and didn’t seem particularly keen on talking, though that didn’t stop Klaus from trying to engage in conversation.

“You doing okay there, Ewok?”

An incoherent mumble passed through Five’s lips, something that sounded suspiciously like _“Piss off,”_ though Klaus wasn’t entirely sure.

“You should be proud of me, you know. I made a Star Wars reference and everything. I remember you liking that stuff, right?”

Another mumble.

“Yeah, I don’t speak that. Have you tried English?”

“Fuck you.”

Klaus couldn’t help but smile.

“Now _that’s_ the Five I remember. Please continue insulting me, if you don’t mind. Does wonders for my rampant superiority complex - _oh wait that’s Luther_ \- the first part still applies though.”

Another soft groan escaped Five’s mouth, and Klaus could feel his smile fading.

“Benny-boy?” he asked, trying not to show the desperation in his voice. “ _Please_ tell me there we’re almost there.”

_“Just another quarter mile or so.”_

“Quarter mile? Fuck me.”

Every part of Klaus’s body was either numb or hurting, and he swore he was suffering from some sort of oxygen deprivation with how hard it was for him to breathe. Five had gone eerily silent in the next few minutes that had passed, with the only indication of life being the shallow breathes that he could feel on his shoulder from where the smaller Hargreeves’ head was lolling.

Klaus nudged him as gently as possible, trying not to aggravate the gaping hole in his side.

“Hey, kiddo. Remember what I said about that sleeping thing, yeah? Let’s not do that.”

No response.

“Five?”

Still nothing.

_Fuck._

“Five?” he said again, much louder. “Please answer me alright? Five?”

Klaus felt as though his heart was beating out of his chest. One quick glance down and he could see... _oh man_ , did he look _terrible_.

Five was so pale and so, _so_ cold....

“I’m _not_ dead yet,” he mumbled into his neck. “Stop staring at me like that.”

Oh, thank god.

_Thank god._

“How do you know I’m staring?” he asked weakly, trying to catch his breath.

“Because I know _you_ , Klaus.”

He blinked open his eyes - _what a marvellous sight, indeed_ \- letting out a slight groan of discomfort.

“Stop jostling me, I’ve been impaled.”

“Hey, I’m _trying_....”

“Try harder.”

He paused.

“Well....maybe it’s a good thing. The pain is at least keeping me awake.”

“Ah, well...you know being awake _is_ a good thing. A _great_ thing. So many things to do and places to go...”

“Klaus...”

“....I should make a pamphlet....”

“....can you....”

“...I’ll call it the wonders of _not_ being dead....”

“Klaus, you’re rambling,” Five cut in gently.

Klaus blinked. Then blinked again.

Fuck, the tears were back.

“Can you just....please just _don’t_ die, okay?”

He sniffled, feeling a tear rolling down his cheek.

“I’ll put in on my to-do list. Right next to tie-dying my brother’s shirt with a suspicious red fluid leaking out of my insides.”

_What is he.....?_

Klaus looked down to find that his blue shirt wasn’t so blue anymore. More like a stained putrid brown-ish.

_....oh._

“Damn, and I really liked this shirt too. _Now_ look what you’ve done, short-stack.”

Five rolled his eyes.

“I won’t apologize, _beanpole_.”

“Stumpy.”

“Longshanks.”

“Ankle-biter....”

_“Hey guys? We’re here!”_

“Aw, Ben! Way to ruin the fun....”

_“I’m trying to save your sorry ass, thank you very much.”_

“In _that_ thing?”

Whatever Ben had led them to, it resembled less of a cabin and more of a hut.

“Looks like an ice shack,” Five murmured beneath him.

“Oh, we’re gonna _die_ out here.” Klaus groaned, suddenly feeling very weak. “I’m going to die in an oversized wooden port-o-potty...”

_“Stop being dramatic. It’s enclosed, okay? There’s some jackets in there and a first aid kit...”_

“I don’t need.... _fuck_ _it_ , why couldn’t there be a damn cell phone in there?”

“Because god hates you.” Five muttered.

“She _does_ , actually. But that’s beside the point.”

Five raised an eyebrow, but didn’t push it.

_“Are you two coming or not?”_

“Alright, alright, Benjamin. It’s not like one of us is bleeding out or anything....”

The shack was small and cramped, with a creaky looking table in the center and some canned food in the corner. A couple of winter coats - _nice_ \- a fishing pole, a shabby carpet, some bucket-chairs, an old encyclopedia (do people still use those?) and a lovely first aid kit were all that remained inside. Klaus couldn’t lie and say that it wasn’t warmer in here than out there, but it certainly didn’t provide the warmth that either of them would need to survive the night.

Klaus eased Five gently onto the carpet, trying not to jostle him too much and risk causing even more internal damage. He let out another moan of pain, squeezing his eyes shut and bunching the carpet together with his fists.

“This is worse than that time dad made us get tattoos.”

“You think?” Klaus said weakly.

“I don’t think. I _know_.”

_“Klaus, get over here.”_

“When did you become so bossy?” he replied stonily, turning to face his ghostly sibling.

_“Did I stutter?”_

Klaus snorted, trying to hide his smile. He made his way over to where Ben was crouched, over the now open first aid kit. There were a lot of things inside, some that Klaus recognized, others that he did not. Plenty of band-aids in an assortment of different sizes, some gauze, a pair of scissors, a needle and some thread, an ointment of some kind, a thermometer, duct tape....

Yeah, it was pretty stocked.

_“Grab the needle and thread. And the antiseptic solution.”_

“Wait, what...”

_“Oh, and the gauze....”_

“ _What_ are you talking about?”

Ben frowned.

_“It’s what you need to stitch the wound, Klaus.”_

Yup, there it was. The nausea had returned.

“Come again?” he stuttered, trying to suppress the dry heaves.

_“Stitching, Klaus. Mother taught us how to every year, remember? In case we got hurt on a mission...”_

Ben paused, studying Klaus’s facial expression.

_“Please tell me you were paying attention...”_

Klaus swallowed thickly.

“Why ask questions you already know the answer to?”

_“Great. This is just great.”_

“What’s going on?” Five asked weakly from the other end of the room.

_Ah, shit._

“Benny boy and I are discussing the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow. It’s very important, pipsqueak.”

_“Seriously?”_

“We need another plan,” Klaus cut in. “Like, one that doesn’t involve me possibly murdering my brother.”

_“You really couldn’t have paid attention in class?”_

“Can you reprimand me later, please? I would very much like for Five not to die tonight.”

Ben sighed, his eyes softening.

_“We won’t let him. There might be another way...”_

“Hit me.”

_“You’re not going to like it...”_

Klaus frowned.

“What is it?” he asked warily.

_“Let me possess you.”_

“Absolutely not.”

_“Klaus....”_

“No way!”

_“Dammit, Klaus! This isn’t about you or me. This is about Five! Turn around and look at him, for god sakes.”_

“Why? Is there....”

Klaus trailed off, drawing his gaze again towards his littlest brother.

Oh, how he _hated_ what he saw.

Five was laying listlessly on the floor, eyes once again shut as he struggled to take in every breath. His skin had taken on an ashen tone, with his lips turning an alarming purple-ish blue.

Another bout of nausea rolled through him.

Oh _shit_.

When the reality of the situation hit him, it hit him _hard_.

He was not equipped to deal with this. It didn’t matter that Five was fifty whatever the fuck years old, he was still his brother. His _baby_ brother that used to crawl into Klaus’s sheets at night because he was scared of thunderstorms. His brother that would bring him treats when father denied him supper and would keep him company during his nights in the mausoleum. His brother who was so much _smaller_ than everyone else and had to have his clothes tailored special because he could never fit into the ones made for his age group.

His brother who had perhaps had the biggest heart of any of his siblings, even if he would never admit to it.

And now he was dying in the middle of fuck all nowhere because of him.

The tears were falling freely now, despite Klaus’s attempts to stop them.

“Okay,” he finally whispered, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

Klaus made his way back over to Five, giving the smaller boy’s hand a gentle squeeze.

God, he was so _cold._

“Klaus?” he mumbled, trying - _and failing_ \- to open his eyes.

“I’m here, little dude. Ben’s gonna fix you.”

“I knew I liked him.”

 _“I like you too, kid,”_ Ben murmured from behind him.

“He says he likes you too.”

Five gave him a soft smile, but didn’t respond.

_“Klaus?”_

“Yeah?”

_“There....there aren’t any sedatives or anything. Nothing to numb him up...”_

It took a second for the implication of Ben’s words to seep through his concussed brain.

“You mean he’s going to _feel_ everything?”

_“Give him a stick or something to bite on...”_

“Oh, _fuck_ no.”

_“Klaus, there isn’t...”_

”There has to be another way, or.... _dammit_ , I don’t know!” Klaus exclaimed. “That level of pain can kill a grown ass man, Ben! I’ve seen that shit on the battlefield. And....and Five’s just a kid, a _small_ one at that....”

“Do _I_ have a say in this?” Five asked tiredly.

Klaus paused, looking down at the pallid boy beneath him.

“First of all, I’m _not_ a kid,” Five continued. “My body might be, but I am almost fifty-nine years old and am perfectly capable of making my own decisions when it comes to my health. Second of all, I’m _dying_. We don’t have a phone and we don’t have a car. This branch can’t stay in me for much longer, and Ben is the only chance we have.”

Klaus sniffled, gripping his brother’s hand even tighter.

“I _know_ , it’s just...”

“Klaus,” Five cut in softly. “I’ve faced death more times than I can possibly remember. I’m _not_ afraid. You shouldn’t be either. We’ll get through this.”

“You’re the one that’s about to be cut open and somehow you’re reassuring _me_?”

“Hey, it’s what older brothers do, beanpole.”

“Shortstop.”

“Gandalf.”

“....who?”

_“Lord of the Rings, dumbass.”_

“You say that as though I read.”

Five let out another moan of discomfort, almost breaking Klaus’s hand.

“ _Fuck_ this hurts,” he whispered, face contorted in pain.

Klaus cleared his throat, turning back to Ben.

“We need to do this _now_.”

Ben nodded, pointing to a twig on the ground.

_“Give it to him to bite on.”_

Not the best pain reliever, but there really wasn’t much else they could do.

Five took the twig without a second thought while Klaus prepared for Ben to jump into his body.

It....wasn’t a pleasant process. Klaus could only describe bodily possession in the same manner in which a body would react to any foreign object - by trying to expel it. Maybe if he was better at mastering his powers - _and perhaps slightly less concussed_ \- he would have an easier time keeping Ben’s consciousness in control. But he _had_ to make it work, because Klaus didn’t want to think about what would happen if it didn’t.

The thing about possession, however, was the complete lack of awareness about your surroundings. Klaus could feel that there were objects in his hands - _the needle and thread? Or was it the antiseptic? Something else?_ \- but he couldn’t quite tell what. His hands didn’t feel dry, but he didn’t know if the liquid was water or blood or some other bodily fluid.

His sight wasn’t any better. It wasn’t as though Klaus could see through his own _\- or was it Ben’s?_ \- eyes, exactly. See, everything Ben was seeing was warped in some blue-ish haze that made it difficult to tell what was going on. His whole world looked like a giant watercolor painting, with objects blending into one another forming some incoherent picture.

But that wasn’t even the worse part.

It was the sound.

Even though his hearing was garbled, there was no denying the screams.

Oh, Five was in _pain_.

His baby brother was in pain and he was dying and there was nothing.... _nothing_ Klaus can do about it.

That...that was the worst part.

_“Ben, is he okay? Is he still breathing? Ben?”_

Could he even hear him?

Actually, it was awfully quiet in there now, wasn’t it?

Klaus couldn’t hear _anything_ anymore, which was even worse than the sound of his little brother’s screams.

_“Dammit Ben, why is he so quiet? Is Five...is he....”_

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He couldn’t see or hear what was going on, his hands were still moving - slow and intricate, so Ben must still be stitching. But everything felt thick and slippery - _was it blood?_ So, _so_ much blood.

God, Klaus _hated_ the stench of blood. It brought back memories he had no wish to relive, and his hands were covered in it.

In _Five’s_ blood.

He wanted to puke.

Klaus wasn’t sure how long it took, time was.... _hazy_ , before Ben finally spoke.

“I’m done."

_What? That’s all you have to say?_

He could feel Ben’s spirit dissipating from his body - _a process that was much neater than the previous method of physically hacking him up_ \- and Klaus was finally able to see again.

He almost immediately wished he wasn’t.

It was safe to say he’d seen some shit - limbs being ripped off, guts flying around, rivers of blood.....war was a messy business. Klaus knew what it was like to lose a person you loved, to hold them in your arms as they take their dying breath.

It....doesn’t get easier.

But Dave died in the line of duty, fighting for his country. Klaus could at least take some comfort - _little as it may be_ \- in that.

But Five?

See, Klaus knew that he was older than he looked, _much_ older. But he couldn’t see that now. What he saw was a hurting little boy - his _brother_ \- who just looked so, _so_ very small curled up on the dirt.

It just wasn’t fair.

Drug addicted alcoholics are the ones that deserve to die in car accidents at three in the morning. Family members who go out of their way to rescue said alcoholics just.... _don’t._

But again, the universe wasn’t fucking fair, was it?

Klaus rose to his knees, feeling extraordinary weak.

“Is he...stable?” he asked, noting how scratchy his voice sounded.

A pregnant pause filled the atmosphere.

“Ben?”

 _“He’s....not dead,”_ Ben finally said, looking uncharacteristically tired for a ghost.

“What a ray of positivity...”

_“Klaus...he’s....look, it’s possible I may have stitched in an infection of some sort- I can’t be sure - but the risk of bleeding out is at least lower than it was before.”_

Klaus lifted one of Five’s hands, which was wet with blood from when he dug his nails deep into his palms. The twig he gave him didn’t seem much better off, with deep grooves marring the outer bark.

 _“He passed out about ten minutes in,”_ Ben continued softly. _“He lasted longer than I thought...he’s tough Klaus. Tougher than we think.”_

“I always knew he was,” he murmured in return, mostly to himself.

He placed his brother’s bloodied hand back down and rose fully to his feet.

Trying to stand was challenging enough, actually walking was borderline impossible. It was lucky then that the cabin was small and Klaus didn’t have to travel very far to reach the coat rack. Maybe it was the adrenaline that prevented him from noticing earlier, but his chest was _really_ starting to hurt. Like....worse than when he first woke up. He gave an involuntary cough - _the air in here was dry and stale_ \- to find his fingers stained with red.

_Oh, how wonderful._

A punctured lung was actually next on Klaus’s daily bingo chart, right behind car wrecks, impalement, and hypothermia.

He sighed, trying to focus on the task ahead of him. His vision was still spotty and blurry, his head was still aching something fierce, and his brother’s blood was still caked on his hands. Klaus had had some shit nights before, but this one might actually take the cake.

He took the largest coat he could find from the rack - _one that was big enough to probably fit Luther_ \- and wrapped it tightly around his unconscious sibling like a sleeping bag. Ben had to cut through Five’s bloodied sweater, leaving the boy with several layers of gauze around his torso, covered by a flimsy t-shirt and little else. The jacket was big enough to swaddle him completely, at least giving the smallest Hargreeves a little warmth that would hopefully last him through the night.

Klaus shot another glance at Ben, who was fading in and out from his field of vision.

That....wasn’t good.

His head most really be fucked up if he was starting to lose Ben. Or was it the lack of oxygen to his brain? Klaus couldn’t really tell anymore.

He took another jacket for himself - _a smaller one, mind you_ \- and eased himself back into a sitting position on the floor.

Fuck, everything hurt.

_“Keep him close to you.”_

Klaus blinked, raising his head.

“You still with me, Benny-boy?” he mumbled as blackness began to permeate his vision.

He swore Ben said something again, but Klaus was hurting too much to figure it out.

_Keep him close to you...._

Right.

He could do that.

Klaus reached for Five, pulling him close to his aching chest. His littlest brother was so stilland cold _,_ even after he bundled him up. He wound his arms tightly around him, afraid that if he let go for even a second, Five would just…disappear.

Closing his eyes, Klaus sat content in sharing what little warmth he had left with his brother.

He _mustn’t_ sleep, he kept telling himself, even as unconsciousness so enticingly beckoned. He had to stay awake. He had to stay awake for Five. To make sure he was still breathing.

Nothing else in the world mattered.

But the night was long and bitterly cold, and the only thing Klaus could do now was cling to the hope that someone - _anyone_ \- would find them before they both perished in darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The little Star Wars and mausoleum tidbit comes from my other Five & Klaus fic, [Stay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25871269), if anyone is interested in reading. It's not required for this story by any means, but it does provide a bit more context to their relationship before Five's disappearance. 
> 
> Also I'm definitely screwing with the cannon in this story by completely ignoring emo!Ben's existence at the end of season 2. He will (not) be missed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five didn't have his coffee this morning.
> 
> Allison is (slightly) concerned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait - this chapter was a bitch and a half to write. This was the first time I've written from a POV in any of my TUA fics that wasn't Five or Klaus, so I was treading new territory.

There are two universal truths about mornings in the Hargreeves mansion.

One - Allison was always the first one up.

This wasn’t a new phenomenon, nor was it surprising in the least. Parenthood involved a fair amount of teamwork, and when Patrick was assigned the midnight feed with Claire, Allison got the early morning shift. Old habits die hard, and even six years later she still couldn’t sleep past six am.

Not that it _bothered_ her, thank you very much.

She _liked_ mornings. She liked the silence amid the chaos that her siblings would soon bring. She liked having the mansion to herself for an hour or two.

It was....nice.

And Allison liked nice things.

But see, everyone _knew_ this already.

The second universal truth, however, was Five’s rather..... _severe_ caffeine addiction. Her elder-teenaged brother never started the morning without a cup _\- or three_ \- of coffee, regardless of the circumstance.

As a child he would satisfy his need for stimulants with an excessive amount of sugar in the form of flutter-nutter sandwiches - _a habit that father was happy to indulge for some reason -_ which now turned into a dependence on caffeine to keep going. She had told him time and time again that it was a terrible habit, but was always brushed off.

 _“I am not child,”_ he would say, before downing his fourth mug. _“Stop treating me like one.”_

It was a fair request to make, given that he was twice her age. But Allison was first and foremost a _mother_ , and it was difficult for her to stand by and watch her brother filling his thirteen year-old body with alcohol and caffeine at a rate that will murder his liver before he turned twenty five.

Of course, that didn’t stop her from putting on a pot of coffee for him before her morning run every day.

Maybe she wasn’t any better than father.

Regardless, there wasn’t anything unusual going on this morning. Allison went for her jog as she always did, trying to ignore the mush on the ground that was making her life slightly more difficult than it needed to be. There was a particularly bad snowstorm last night, the remnants of which could still be seen outside. She reentered the Hargreeve’s mansion drenched in some combination of sweat and melted snow, and quickly made her way up the stairs.

45 minutes and a shower later, she found herself back in the kitchen nursing a cup of hot chocolate with the daily newspaper spread out on the kitchen table. Vanya was already cooking by the time she came down, laboring over what smelled like french toast. The coffee remained untouched.

_Huh._

Five was usually down by now, assuming he got any sleep at all. Her littlest brother had a rather bad habit of skipping out on sleep in favor of....well, Allison wasn’t quite sure, but it probably had to do with math. It was another thing she wanted to call him out on - _“your body needs sleep, Five”_ \- but she knew he would ignore her like always.

“Has Five come downstairs yet?” she asked her sister, who was placing her now used pan in the sink.

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Coffee hasn’t been touched yet.”

Vanya smiled, walking over to the table.

“That stuff is terrible for him.”

“Try telling _him_ that.”

“I value my life, Ally. And he’s probably still sleeping.”

Allison glanced at the clock. 7:42.

She didn’t like this.

“I guess,” she murmured, taking another sip.

Diego was up next, and Luther shortly after him. Klaus was almost never up before 10, so it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t make an appearance in the kitchen.

8:12.

8:17.

8:26.

8:34.

“Maybe you should check on him?” Vanya said softly, mirroring Allison’s thoughts.

“Who?” Luther piped up, digging into his bowl of eggs.

“Five.”

“Where is the little shit anyways?”

“ _Diego_....”

“What?”

“Be nice...”

“I’m _always_ nice, Vanya. In fact, I’m the nicest person in this damn house.”

“In your dreams...”

“You _wish_ I was in your dreams....”

“.... I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.....”

“....you’re bad enough when we’re awake...”

“Stick it up your ass, Luther...”

_For fucks sake...._

They were together for less than an hour and the fights were already breaking out.

“Where do you think Five is?” Allison interrupted, pounding her spoon on the table.

“He’s probably still sleeping,” Luther shrugged, returning his attention to his monstrous bowl of eggs.

8:35.

“I’m going to his room,” she said, getting up from the table.

“It’s your funeral,” Diego snorted, taking a bite of toast.

Allison shook her head, ignoring Diego’s biting remark. A morning person he was not. She made her way upstairs, gently knocking on Five’s door. If he really was sleeping, the last thing she wanted to do was wake him. The kid _needed_ sleep, badly. But Allison was of the nervous sort, especially when it involved her family.

Her first knock received no response, her second went the same way. She could feel her heart rate increasing - _“he has to be fine, right?”_ \- but Five _never_ missed a cup of coffee in the morning. Her insane murder gremlin of a sibling was one of order and routine, and as much as a pain in the ass he was, she loved him very much. All of them did, even if it was difficult to admit to some times - _coughcough Diego_.

Allison took a deep breath and slowly opened the door.

He was fine.

He _had_ to be fine.

He just overslept, right?

She took a step inside and he....he _wasn’t_ there.

_Shit._

Maybe she should stop overreacting. Five _was_ an adult after all. He was an adult with highly compromised social skills who was often unable to identify when his actions would be affecting those around him.

But he was still an adult, and as much as Allison would like to mother him - _and as much as he needed to be mothered sometimes_ \- there wasn’t really anything she could do about monitoring his whereabouts.

Still, something just seemed.... _off_.

Sure, Five disappearing wasn’t _unusual_ per say, but he could never function well without his coffee first thing in the morning. Not to mention that he probably didn’t sleep at all last night, and it was worrisome that her sort-of-teenage brother was out there getting into who knows what with no sleep and no caffeine. His powers required a certain amount of energy to function properly, and Allison doubted he was going to have any left to fight - _if that was what he was up to, that is._

She sighed _,_ leaving Five’s room. She eyed Klaus’s door down the hall, wondering if he was going to get up at some point. Klaus was a night owl if Allison ever saw one, and certainly had no problems sleeping until noon if he was allowed. It crossed her mind briefly that maybe he knew where Five might be - if Five left late last night or early this morning, Klaus may have been up to see him leave.

She hesitated waking him up, knowing full well that Klaus also had his difficulties in falling asleep. Having multiple ghosts screaming in your ear couldn’t be a pleasant experience in the least when one wanted to get some shuteye.

But eventually her worries overrode any other concerns. She knocked - _no response_ \- and knocked again - _still no response_.....

_Godammit, was he deaf?_

So be it. It was nearing 9 am, anyways, so she felt slightly less bad about bursting in his room. What she found when he entered....

 _God_ , he was such a slob.

T-shirts, skirts, papers, napkins, and used paper plates littered the floor and piled up in the corners and on the bed. Or at least, Allison _thought_ was the bed, but could perhaps be misidentified as a giant lump of unwashed clothing.

Her motherly instincts were kicking in, telling her to clean up his damn mess, but unfortunately she had other concerns at the moment.

See, Klaus was also gone.

_Fuck._

Another deep breath.

She couldn’t go into panic mode, not yet at least. There had to be some plausible explanation for why two of her brothers weren’t in the house.

Did Klaus go out last night?

That seemed most likely, but did nothing to quell Allison’s fears. If he did go out, why wasn’t he back? Did he pass out somewhere? Find himself in a stranger’s bed? Was he safe?

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

_Wait...._

.....was Five _with_ him?

Did they go out together? What if they were in trouble? What if....?

 _No_.

Things were fine. They _had_ to be fine.

She was probably...

“Allison?”

She could hear footsteps up the staircase and soon found herself face to face with her sister.

“What is it?”

Vanya was fidgeting, pulling on strands of her hair like she used to do as a kid. Something was clearly biting her.

“Vanya?” Allison asked again gently.

“Did you find Five?”

_Deep breaths._

“No,” she said, trying to control her breathing. “He’s not here.”

A moment of uncomfortable silence passed.

“I was taking out the trash,” Vanya finally said. “And....well, the car is gone. Dad’s car? I was thinking that maybe Five took it. I mean....if he wasn’t here than it would make sense.”

Allison frowned.

No, she did _not_ like this.

“Klaus is also gone,” she said slowly.

“Do...you think _he_ took the car?”

“I don’t know, Vanya,” she sighed. “But I don’t like it.”

Vanya crossed her arms, pacing the hallway.

“You think they’re in trouble.”

“I....” Allison trailed off. “Again, I don’t know. I just have a feeling something is wrong.”

_Shit. It’s too damn early for this._

Could this family go through one week without something going wrong?

She grabbed Vanya’s wrist and made her way downstairs. Luther and Diego were still sitting at the table, with the former - _finally_ \- finishing his eggs and the latter twirling a knife around his fingers.

“Five and Klaus are missing,” she asserted.

“Five is missing? Must be Tuesday.”

“This is _serious_ , Diego.”

“Why? He goes off by himself all the time....”

“But....”

“....but what?”

A beat of silence.

“He didn’t have his coffee this morning,” she mumbled, suddenly finding interest in the floor.

“His _coffee_?”

“Diego...” Vanya cut in futilely.

“You’re concerned because he didn’t have his coffee?” he repeated, completely ignoring her. “ _That’s_ what has you so worked up?”

“He always has his coffee in the morning...”

“.....this is ridiculous, he’s _fine_...”

“....he can’t function without it...”

“....probably axing innocent civilians as we speak....”

“.....and he would _tell_ us if he was going somewhere....”

“ENOUGH!”

Luther stood up, pounding his fist against the table.

“Seriously. We are _adults_. Act like it.”

He turned to Allison, his expression softening.

“Have you tried calling him? I mean, you bought him a phone, right?”

_Oh, shit._

How did she forget about the phone?

Allison pulled it out of her pocket almost mechanically.

_“Why didn’t she just do that earlier...”_

_“Hush, Diego...”_

She typed Five’s number and waited with bated breath.

_Please answer. Please answer. Please be okay._

Nothing. It went straight to voicemail.

“Shit,” Diego said softly.

“Maybe he turned his phone off?” Luther offered weakly.

Allison shook her head, clutching her phone even tighter.

“I told him not to....”

“Why don’t you try Klaus?” Vanya suggested.

Diego frowned.

“Isn’t he here?”

“No,” Allison said. “The car is missing as well.”

“Well that’s just _great_...”

“...can Klaus even drive?”

“....badly, yeah.”

“...are they together?”

“I’m pretty sure Five can’t stand him...”

“....Five can’t stand any of us. That’s besides the point....”

“....what if they’re in trouble...”

“....no, shit Luther....”

Allison tried to filter out her siblings ramblings as best she could, numbly scrolling through her contact list until she found Klaus’s number. It was useless to get her hopes up, she knew, but there was still some small part of her brain that wanted to say that they were both _fine_ \- maybe eating breakfast or something and just forgot to tell them. But as with Five, Klaus’s phone went straight to voicemail.

Was now a good time to start panicking?

“.....Five can handle himself perfectly fine....”

“.....we don’t know that!”

“.....what about Klaus?”

“What _about_ Klaus?”

“....didn’t he take the car?”

“....I thought that was Five....”

“....are they together?”

“Guys!” Allison cried. “Klaus’s phone went straight to voicemail. _Neither_ of them answered.”

“Well this is just _great,_ ” Diego muttered. “Why even get them phones in the first place?”

“So what do we do?” Vanya asked, elbowing her brother in the stomach.

“We find them,” Luther asserted.

Let it be known that it took them way too long - _24 minutes to be exact_ \- to recall that their phones had trackers in them. They tried Klaus’s first, which gave them a location some forty five minutes away near what looked like a cluster of bars.

That was...concerning.

What was more concerning was that his phone had been off for over seven hours. Five wasn’t any better - his phone had pinged closer to home, but he didn’t look like he was near....anything, really. Like his brother, his phone had gone offline about seven hours earlier.

It couldn’t have been a coincidence.

So they _were_ together. That was good, right? But where were they, exactly? Are they still at the last location Five’s phone had picked up? It couldn’t be possible, it was far too cold. So where did they go? Why were they out there in the first place?

There were too many questions and not enough answers.

It took another 10 minutes for them to file into Diego’s old car and go looking. Allison was trying hard not to look as nervous as she felt. Vanya was twisting around her hair again next to her, looking blankly out the window. Luther was in the front trying to give directions, just be hushed by Diego who insisted that _he knew what he was doing._

He was nervous, Allison could tell. Diego was terrible at showing it, but he was gripping the steering wheel so tight that she could see the whites of his knuckles. He was an asshole certainly, but weren’t they all? It didn’t matter, because when push comes to shove, there wasn’t anything Diego wouldn’t do for his family.

Allison squeezed Vanya’s hand tightly as silence permeated the car. Nobody felt a particular desire to talk with what was going on, and Allison was afraid she might cry if she opened her mouth.

Maybe they _were_ fine. Maybe this was just a huge misunderstanding. Maybe if she kept telling herself that, it would turn out to be true.

Maybe.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed before the car came to a stop.

“....are we here?” Vanya asked quietly.

Allison look out of the window to find....nothing.

Just some back-end road and a thick layer of snow on the ground and shrubbery. There weren’t any buildings around, no sign of any people....

What were they doing out here?

“Are you sure the tracker was working?” Luther asked. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, I don’t know about you, but I’m not seeing our brothers.”

“It’s not _completely_ accurate,” Diego growled, looking ready to strangle the next person who talked to him. “I mean it’s....it gives us a range, you know? Five - _or his phone more accurately_ \- is around here somewhere.”

“But there’s no shelter...” Vanya murmured, gripping Allison’s hand even tighter. “And it’s so cold....”

She trailed off, wiping a tear rolling down her cheek.

“Maybe he teleported?” Luther offered.

“That doesn’t explain why he and Klaus were out here in the first place.”

“Are you sure he was with Klaus?”

“Nobody is _sure_ of anything,” Diego cut in icily. “All any of us know is that Five’s phone - or the last place his phone was before it shut off - is in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“I don’t like this,” Vanya said softly.

_Neither do I._

Allison drew another deep breath, and opened the car door.

“Well you said it’s somewhere in this area, right Diego?”

“Theoretically...”

“So then let’s start looking.”

Vanya and Luther nodded. Diego took a second, running his fingers through his hair. Finally he exited the car as well, still looking quite pissed at god knows what.

“Spread out,” Allison instructed firmly. “Keep your phones on and yell if you see anything alright?”

Another set of nods.

Allison set off, combing through the snow. It was still terribly cold out, even with the sun shining down on them. She couldn’t imagine how cold it must have been last night, especially with the added bonus of a rather severe snow storm.

_Oh, please be okay._

What on Earth were they doing out here at three in the morning?

She didn’t know what was worse - finding them out here or not finding them at all.

It took a while - twenty minutes maybe - before she heard a scream.

A female scream.

“Vanya?”

She couldn’t see her sister, but she sounded close.

Was she in danger?

“Vanya!” she yelled again, running as fast as she could towards the sound. It turns out she didn’t have to run far before Vanya came into her line of sight. She looked....terrified.

“What happened?” she gasped. “Are you okay?”

There were tears running down her face.

_Oh.....oh, shit...._

“I saw it Allison,” she cried.

Allison could feel her heart drop to her stomach.

“Saw what?”

A heavy pause filled the air as Vanya batted away the tears rolling down her cheek with her hand.

“Vanya,” she repeated slowly. “Saw _what_?”

Vanya took a shuddering breath, trying to regain composure of her faculties.

“Their _car_ , Allison. I found...I found what was left of their car.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

#

_He didn’t want to blink._

_If he blinked - if he closed his eyes for just a second - he wouldn’t be able to open them back up again._

_He just knew he wouldn’t._

_It wasn’t dark anymore, he thought. He must have slept for a while. Klaus was asleep too._

_Or was he dead?_

_Five couldn’t tell._

_But his brother was so cold._

_Five should have been cold too. But he didn’t feel cold. He didn’t feel....anything._

_He wanted to sleep again._

_He couldn’t sleep again._

_He couldn’t close his eyes._

_No - he mustn’t close his eyes._

_He wanted to say he was sorry._

_He was sorry that he ran away._

_He was sorry he left his siblings alone._

_He was sorry he wasn’t there to save Ben._

_He was sorry about all of the people he killed._

_All of the innocent people._

_He was sorry that he crashed the car and they were stuck out here._

_He was sorry that he was going to die in Klaus’s arms._

_....in his arms....._

_He was in his arms._

_He...he wasn’t alone._

_For the first time in his life, he wouldn’t have to face death alone._

_Maybe it would be okay._

_Maybe....maybe he deserved this._

_Maybe._

_He burrowed himself deeper in Klaus’s embrace._

_He never got to tell him._

_He never....he was going to die and none of his siblings knew..._

_If he wasn’t so tired, he would cry._

_“I love you,” he whispered into Klaus’s chest, knowing full well he couldn’t hear him._

_And he finally closed his eyes._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Klaus was tired.

That in itself wasn’t unusual - exhaustion was his default personality trait behind.... _well_ , whatever the hell he was like while inebriated.

But what was uncharacteristic for Klaus at the moment was the fact that he was actively trying to _stay_ awake. Sleep was a luxury that he never seemed to get as a child, and even into adulthood he still had his difficulties in pursuing such an activity.

But now?

He could hardly keep his eyes open. It wasn’t as though there was much for him to see anyways, with his world consisting of barely discernible objects floating around in his peripherals. But he knew if he closed his eyes for longer than a second, that would be the end of it.

And so he didn’t.

That didn’t stop him from hurting, however. His head felt like it was going through a trash compactor and his chest....god, his _chest_....

He could barely breathe.

Klaus knew that Ben was around somewhere, probably trying to talk to him about god knows what, but everything felt awfully distorted to the point of imperceptibility.

So instead, he tried to focus on the things he _did_ know.

One - it was still dark out.

Klaus had no way to check the time, and to be frank, his ability to keep track of anything at the moment was shoddy at best. He thinks he’s been here for maybe an hour, but it could easily have been longer.

_Or shorter._

Two - rescue. Or lack thereof.

The only people who would know - _or care_ \- about him being missing were his siblings. The pertinent question now was whether they would actually notice. He had gone missing ( _kidnapped_ ) before, and they certainly didn’t care then. This was also completely disregarding the fact that it was the middle of the night - or was it early morning now? Klaus had no way of knowing. If there was anyone who would realize there was something up, it’ll be Allison. But she never made a habit of going into his room unless there was a reason to.

Oh, he was _fucked._

He took a breath ( _god, his chest hurt_ ), trying to calm his nerves.

_Keep going._

Three - he wasn’t alone.

Maybe it would have been better if he was. This way he could die and not have to drag anyone else down with him. But he had blood on his hands, blood that wasn’t _his_. Blood that may never come off, no matter how hard he scrubbed.

 _Five’s blood_.

His brother was so cold and pale to the point of near-total translucency. He was also gripping Klaus’s jacket so tight that he thinks he might have to start breaking some fingers just to loosen the dying boy’s grip. But in some alternate timeline where things weren’t quite so shit and better decisions were made, Five could just as easily be sleeping. Nice and comfortably nestled against Klaus’s chest where he could wake up safe and warm and....

God, life was a bitch.

But even Five couldn’t find peace in unconsciousness. He wasn’t sure what his smallest brother saw every time he closed his eyes, but Klaus sure as hell didn’t want to know. Even now, he could feel him shaking - every jerk, every tremble and every shudder. He knew Five was suffering, but his convulsive movements were an indication that there was still some life kicking around in such a broken frame.

It was comforting in a way.

The forward momentum of time continued to move at an achingly glacial pace, and there came a point when Klaus was sure he’d lost all feeling in his lower extremities. Perhaps that was a blessing in disguise, one less area to worry about while his head and chest continued to pound with a vengeance.

Five was....well, he just _was._ Klaus couldn’t lie and say he was getting any better - not that he knew what _better_ meant in the context of the situation anyways. Five wasn’t dead, and that’s all he could really think about right now.

Of course, that didn’t mean he was doing _well_. Consciousness was more an on or off thing for him as of late. He would mumble something incoherent into his neck, open his glassy eyes for the briefest of seconds, and fall back asleep immediately after with no recollection of having been awake for any of the previous occasions.

Klaus could only describe the process as something akin to watching an elderly dementia-ridden patient wither away before his eyes.

It was.... _horrifying_.

But Klaus was so very tired, and he had no more tears to give. He settled on tucking his little brother’s head under his chin and holding his scrawny little body just a bit tighter. He wanted to tell him that everything was going to be okay. That their siblings would come and they’ll warm them up and take care of the hole in his side.

He wanted this to be some fucked up trip - some hallucinogen with nasty side effects. But then, he’d be lying. He noticed Five wasn’t moving much anymore, becoming more and more still with each passing minute. 

“ _This is your fault_ ,” he could hear his father saying.

 _“This is your fault_.”

_“This is your fault.”_

_“This is your....”_

_“This....”_

_“Klaus?”_

_“.....is your...”_

_“Klaus!”_

_“....fault.”_

_“Hey! Snap out of it!”_

_Klaus jolted up from his pillow, rubbing his eyes._

_“What....are you doing here?” he asked warily, stifling a yawn._

_“You were dreaming again, weren’t you?”_

_Maybe at this point Klaus shouldn’t have been surprised that Five had snuck into his bedroom this early in the morning, but it was a welcome sight nonetheless._

_“It’s not a big deal.”_

_“Seems like a big deal.”_

_“Well....it’s not.”_

_Five paused, hovering over his doorstep._

_“Can I show you something?”_

_“Is it food?”_

_“Why must you always think with your stomach?”_

_Five inched closer, clearly hiding something behind his back._

_Klaus sighed, propping himself up against the wall._

_“So.....not food?”_

_Five rolled his eyes._

_“You’re at the mausoleum tonight, correct?”_

_Klaus shuddered at the thought. It had been almost three years of that retched place and it still sent a shiver up his spine._

_Five....Five had made his nights in there better since he started visiting. He had made it homey and fun. Like what he imagined a sleepover would be like, with food and movies and staying up way too late and hating yourself in the morning._

_“Yeah,” he responded softly._

_“Good.”_

_Five plopped himself on the edge of Klaus’s bed, pulling out what looked like a DVD from behind him._

_“Movie night?” Klaus asked._

_“Oh, my dearest number four,” Five said with a smile similar to that of the Cheshire Cat. “....this isn’t just any movie night.”_

_“It...isn’t?”_

_“Oh no. This one is special.”_

_Klaus blinked. And then blinked again._

_“....um.....okay?”_

_“This," Five said, jabbing his bony finger into the DVD case, “is Attack of the Clones.”_

_A moment of silence._

_“.....that’s Star Wars, right?”_

_“Are you serious?”_

_“I....uh....”_

_“Yes it’s Star Wars!” Five exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “Obviously we couldn’t see it in theaters but the DVD came out a couple of months ago, so I nabbed it from that Blockbusters near the McDonalds...”_

_“....you stole it....”_

_Five paused, looking back towards the bed._

_“I borrowed it,” he clarified._

_Klaus could feel the smile forming on his face._

_“Sure.”_

_“Anyways, I thought we’d watch it tonight. The DVD player is still charged, right?”_

_“Ummmm I think so.”_

_“Good.”_

_He proceeded to toss the case on top of Klaus’s ever growing laundry pile near the window._

_“It’s best if it stays in your room for now. Dad has Mom going into my room every afternoon looking for contraband.”_

_“Well, maybe you should stop being a klepto...”_

_Five frowned, crossing his arms._

_“This time it’s justified.”_

_“Why?”_

_“It’s Star Wars.”_

_“Well in that case...”_

_“There’s something else,” Five cut in._

_“What is it?”_

_“Well....”_

_“Five?” Klaus prodded gently, noting the sudden change in demeanor._

_“I’m going to ask Dad about the time travel thing again.”_

_A beat of silence._

_“.....what?” Klaus finally sputtered. “Are you insane?”_

_“I ran the calculations and....”_

_“Do you realize what happened last time you asked about that?” he cut in angrily. “He threw you off the roof!”_

_“That was then. This is now.”_

_“You can’t be serious...”_

_Five knelt down, his gaze locked on Klaus’s._

_“I can do it,” he whispered. “I know I can.”_

_“Five...”_

_“I’ll ask him at dinner. He’s usually in a better mood then.”_

_“Five, I don’t....”_

_“And when I do it , we can celebrate by watching Star Wars.”_

_“But....”_

_“But what?”_

_“I mean....it’s dangerous, isn’t it?”_

_Five shrugged._

_“I’m not a baby, I can handle it.”_

_“You’re not an adult either.”_

_“I’m thirteen, close enough.”_

_Klaus sighed, suddenly feeling very tired._

_“I’ll be fine,” Five insisted, shooting him a smile. “I promise.”_

_“What if Dad says no? At dinner, that is. What’ll you do then?”_

_Five paused, eyebrows furrowed._

_“Then....” he said slowly, “I’ll have to show him.”_

_“That’s...a bad idea...”_

_“Klaus....”_

_“....a really bad idea....”_

_“Klaus, wake up!”_

_“I am awake....”_

_“Huh? I know you are,” Five said confusedly._

_“But....”_

_Oh, shit._

Klaus gasped as his eyes snapped open.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

_“Oh, finally,”_ Ben murmured beside him. _“You’ve been asleep for…”_

“What?” Klaus croaked. “God.... _shit_....”

How could he fall asleep? He immediately looked down at Five, who was still sprawled listlessly across his chest.

“Did he....I mean....wake up at all? While I....”

God, his head _hurt_.

_“I....he’s really out of it Klaus. I mean I’m not sure he knows where he is or what’s going on...”_

Klaus glanced at Ben, who was now flickering in and out of his vision. Whatever his brother was saying now was once again unintelligible as he continued to fade.

_Well that’s the end of that._

He sighed, looking back down at Five’s sleeping face.

_Did you wake up while I was out? We’re you scared? Confused?_

He ran a finger down his cheek, noting how _cold_ he was. And how damn small. Why was Five so small?

Klaus could feel the tears bubbling in his eyes.

 _No_. He couldn’t cry. Not now.

But as quickly as he was upset, he was also mad.

He was mad at himself, he was mad at the car, at the weather....he was mad that he fell asleep. He was mad that it was now light outside now and _they were still here_.

He was mad that his siblings didn’t give enough of a shit to try and find them.

Now the tears were falling. And they were falling hard.

Why did the world feel like it was conspiring against him?

“You just had to fucking run away, didn’t you?” he cried, feeling a sudden burst of anger. “You....you always thought you were smarter than all of us and _better_ than us and then you fucking left and...and...I had to spend that night alone _because you didn’t come back!_ You…you _promised_ me you’d come back _….”_

He tried to hold back his sobs, his gasps, because _god_ it hurt so bad. His chest felt as though it was caving in on itself. He rested his head on top of Five’s, dampening the boy’s hair with his tears.

“I missed you so much. I never stopped looking. I even tried to conjure you....I...shit, I even kept that stupid Star Wars movie because I thought you’d want to see it if you came back. I was so _mad_ at you, you know?”

Except he didn’t know. He’ll never know.

“And Vanya...she kept making those dumb sandwiches you liked. She missed you too. You were always her favorite.”

Klaus took another shuddering breath. He.....where was he again? He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He could barely see. The colored blur in his vision was growing darker as everything began melt into one another.

And Five? Five hadn’t moved. Not even once.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, squeezing the prone form in his arms. “I’m sorry. I...I forgive you. And...I hope one day you can forgive me. I hope...”

He drifted. The world faded and returned. It spun and slowed down. Up was down and down was sideways and nothing, _nothing_ made sense. Sleeping didn’t help him, it made everything worse. He would hear noises sometimes – _not from Five_ – Five wasn’t moving anymore. Other noises.

_“Klaus?”_

Like that. He wondered if it was Ben. He wondered if it was ghosts.

_“Five? Klaus? Are you in there?”_

There were more noises. Klaus couldn’t describe them. He couldn’t do anything because the world didn’t make sense anymore. There was just sound, and colors and movement that he couldn’t compute.

_“Guys! Guys I found them!”_

_“Where?”_

_“Oh shit...”_

_“Oh my god...”_

_“Are they...”_

_“....is he....”_

_“....Five?”_

It was _far_ too much noise. Klaus wanted to cry again. They kept getting louder and louder. And closer.

 _No._ They mustn’t come close to him. Or Five.

_“Klaus are you...”_

_“....is he....”_

_“....what about...”_

The voices....they sounded....scared?

“ _Klaus? Klaus, look at me._ _Please_.”

Someone was touching him. They looked familiar, he thinks. He wants to tell them to stop, but no words come out.

_“You...Klaus? Can you hear me?”_

_“...god, is he injured?”_

_“...why isn’t he answering?”_

_“....he looks catatonic...”_

“ _Klaus!”_ the same voice repeated. They sounded urgent.

_“You...you need to let go of him. Of Five. He’s very sick, you so understand?”_

No, he _didn’t_ understand. He held onto his brother like a lifeline. The noises _\- they had to be ghosts_ \- wouldn’t take him. He wouldn’t let them take Five away. He couldn’t. He...he....

_“Please, Klaus. Five isn’t breathing, do you understand? Klaus?”_

Next came the touching. The pulling.

“No!” he thought he screamed but it came out as something much lesser. His chest imploded. His vision went red. He was seeing every color of the rainbow and nothing at all, simultaneously. There was something wet dribbling from his mouth. And it was so _loud._

_“Oh my god is that blood?”_

_“He’s coughing up blood.”_

_“Jesus...”_

He tried speaking again through the wetness.

“You...you can’t take him. You _can’t_...”

God, the tears were back, weren’t they? The volume kept increasing and people kept touching him and prodding him and... _Five_. He couldn’t let them have Five. He would die before he let these....these ghosts take his brother.

“You _can’t_ have him...” he repeated.

_“Allison, just...”_

_“...I don’t want...”_

_“....Five doesn’t have a fucking pulse, do it now!”_

_“Klaus,”_ the voice murmured, gently stroking his cheek _. “I’m so sorry.”_

_“....I heard a rumor....”_

No! No....

_“....that you let go of Five...”_

He screamed.

His arms went lax and someone _took_ him.

_“Get Five to the car, Diego.”_

_“.....CPR....”_

_“...ohmigod there’s no pulse...”_

_“....please Five...”_

He wanted to scream again but couldn’t. He wanted to hold his brother again but he couldn’t. He wanted to protect him but he couldn’t.

_“Klaus, let me help you up.”_

This was a different voice. A lower voice.

_“Can you walk?”_

Walk? He... _god,_ he couldn’t _see_. He couldn’t do anything. He flailed.

“Five?” he tried yelling as this larger creature hoisted him up. His arms were moving but he wasn’t sure in which direction.

“Five!” he tried again and found more sticky wetness on his face and chin. He kept reaching…reaching…reaching…maybe if he kept _reaching_ he would find Five.

He could take him away from the noises and loudness and colors.

“Five!”

Everything was wet but he didn’t know from what.

_“Klaus! Stop, please….He’s....Diego and Allison got him, okay? He’s safe. Let’s get you out of here.”_

Safe.

That word wasn’t real. That word was a lie. But it was too late for him. Things kept getting louder and everything was getting wetter and colder and no part of his body was doing what he wanted it to do. His vision was blackening around the edges - _faster and faster_ \- before going completely dark.

He was lucky then that a strong pair of arms caught him just before he hit the floor.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus continues to have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was originally going to be a one shot that turned into a five shot that turned into a six shot and now it's at seven chapters. 
> 
> I swear the next one is the last one!

“Welcome back.”

Consciousness came quickly, jolting Klaus out of whatever blissful dreamworld he had stumbled into not long before.

_Back?_

The voice sounded familiar, though that wasn’t really saying much. Klaus had encountered a fair amount of people in his life, most of whom he had no intention of seeing again.

So many voices, so many shared beds and alleyways. So much darkness. So much regret.

But this voice sounded.... _newer_. Younger. And that was what scared him.

He opened his eyes, a process that should have been easy, but ended up as more a struggle than one would anticipate. He wasn’t _hurting_ per say, though he felt like he should be.

It was....what did they call it? Phantom pain? In his head, in his chest. Remnants of what should have been, not of what _was_.

Where the hell was he?

The ground beneath him felt almost _soft_ \- malleable and grainy beneath his fingers.

 _Sand_.

It wasn’t an uncomfortable sensation, but perhaps an unfamiliar one. Klaus‘s contact with sand of any sort was infrequent at best, given the location in which he was raised.

God, he was _dead_ wasn’t he?

Klaus sure as hell knew it wasn’t this fucking hot in New York, not in the middle of January.

“You’re _not_ dead.”

Ah. The voice was back.

Well, if he wasn’t dead then he must be dreaming. It was the only plausible conclusion he could reach at the moment, given the rather scrambled state of his brain _(or what remained thereof_ ).

He turned towards the sound almost on instinct, and just as quickly came to regret it.

A little girl - _maybe a year or two younger than Five_ \- stood before him, arms crossed and smirk on full display.

_Shit._

“You sure I’m not dead?” he asked weakly. “Like....did you check?”

The girl looked nothing less than amused.

“Of all the places I thought we’d end up, I don’t think I was expecting Miami Beach. It’s rather ironic given your situation, don’t you think?”

Klaus blinked.

“My...what? You mean this was _me_?”

The girl let out a soft chuckle.

“Trust me, this wasn’t my choice. I rather preferred the bicycle and village, if I say so myself.”

Klaus turned away, eyes fixed on the ocean spilling out in front of him. He was sure he’d seen this image before, probably on a gas station postcard or some bullshit timeshare commercial on television.

“Why am I here?” he asked softly.

The girl made her way closer, crouching down beside him.

“The mind isn’t tied to the body. While you lay dormant in the physical, the mind is free to pursue.... _other_ activities.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

He swore the girl’s smirk grew wider, but maybe that was another figment of his addled brain.

“You know what you _really_ want to ask. Why are you so afraid to do so?”

_Damn you._

He had been here before, all those months ago. Well, not _here_ per say, but in the same purgatory-esque dreamland with the same snot nosed child who didn’t seem to like him very much.

Not that he blamed her.

But that was then.

_Then._

Then he was looking for Dave. Brilliant, _beautiful_ Dave - the love of his life - the man that taught him what it meant to truly be alive.

Until he wasn’t.

Klaus had tried to bring him back. He even went so far as having Diego tie him up to force sobriety.

And where did that get him?

Dave never came back. He had been dead fifty years at that point, more than enough time to come to terms with his demise. Wasn’t acceptance the final stage of grief?

So instead of Dave, Klaus got the luxury of seeing his father.

_Last time._

But that feeling in his gut - the twisted, churning nausea that spread so unceremoniously from his stomach to his throat - _that_ feeling was very much the same.

“Is he here?”

Klaus was surprised at how.... _far away_ ….he sounded. His voice didn’t feel like his own anymore, as if some stranger was speaking through him.

“Who?”

“You _know_ who.”

The girl paused, scooping up some of the sand with her hands.

Klaus gritted his teeth.

“My brother,” he continued. “Short? Angry? Insistent on wearing a school uniform at all times? Ringing any bells?”

The girl raised her fist up, letting the sand slip through her fingers.

“Am I _boring_ you?”

She turned around with a gaze that cut through him like a knife.

“He’s not here.”

_He....what?_

“What do you mean _not here_?”

“I would imagine that phrase to be pretty self-explanatory....”

“He’s alive?” Klaus cut in sharply, finding the act of breathing rather difficult at the moment.

“I never said that.”

_What?_

“But...you said he’s not here....”

The girl tilted her head, eyes never leaving Klaus’s own.

“Those two statements are not mutually exclusive.”

“The _fuck_ does that mean?”

The girl narrowed her eyes. 

“As I said before, the mind isn’t tied to the body. The _soul_ however _,_ is a bit more clingy.”

“That’s not....”

“Would you like to see him?” she interrupted.

Klaus froze.

“But I thought….thought he wasn’t….”

“He isn’t here _,”_ the girl continued _. “_ Would you like to see him?”

“You aren’t making any sense!”

_“Would you like to see him?”_

The girl didn’t look angry per say, though she was wearing an expression that Five was all too familiar with....absolute annoyance.

“Yes,” he finally mumbled.

The girl raised an eyebrow.

_“Please?_

She rolled her eyes, rising to her feet.

“You might find this to be slightly disorienting.”

_Find what?_

He didn’t have the time to ask. It only took a wave of her hand before everything began to....change. The ground hardened, the sky darkened....darker and darker....Klaus felt as though he was spinning. Or flying?

Floating?

He was swamped with lights and colors and sounds before landing with a thud.

 _Oh,_ he was going to puke. Klaus opened his eyes slowly, trying to get his bearings.

He was....where was he?

On a bed of some kind, or was it a table? The walls looked familiar, actually.

_Wait..._

He _recognized_ those walls _._

He was home. In the infirmary.

_Fuck, it was a dream._

Klaus could cry. He was back home and someone must have fixed him because he felt considerably better than he did before. In fact...he wasn’t hurting at all.

Shouldn’t he be hurting?

“It wasn’t a dream.”

Klaus turned around to find himself again facing the long-haired devil child herself, the unbearable smirk still etched across her features.

_For the love of..._

“So where am I then?”

“Right there,” she responded, pointing beside him.

_Shit._

Klausturned to see... _himself?_ Lying prone on a table looking like absolute trash. His head was wrapped in gauze and there was a tube down his damn throat.

“Collapsed lung, internal bleeding, concussion...I’d say another day or two before you wake up. For _them_ , at least,” she said, indicating a sleeping Diego in the far corner of the room.

“They’ve been taking shifts,” she continued. “It’s rather sweet.”

“What do you mean.... _for them_?”

“Where we are, time doesn’t really exist.”

“That doesn’t...”

He trailed off, feeling far too tired to make sense of anything she was telling him.

“You said I could see him,” he finally said. “Five? Where is he?”

“Other room.”

Klaus didn’t hesitate. He felt....strange - _intangible?_ \- ghost like. Is this how Ben felt? He tried reaching for the doorknob but his hand went straight through.

_The...fuck?_

“You exist in mind only,” the girl piped up behind him, sounding all too amused. “You can’t _touch_ anything.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

A more direct approach it was. Klaus stepped through the wall to the other side. Their father had several different rooms set up to deal with a plethora of different injuries. Some larger, some smaller, plenty of supplies handled with great care by their robotic mother.

Five’s room was....busier. Every sibling - _sans Ben and Diego_ \- were in there, functioning at completely different rates. Mom was there as well, doing.... _things_.

And Five.... _fuck_ , he looked dead.

There were tubes everywhere, pumping god knows what into his tiny prepubescent body. Tubes in his arms, in his stomach, in his throat, monitors were beeping and pulsing, the sounds...it was unbearably loud.

“The mousy one? She hasn’t stopped crying.”

The girl somehow apparated beside him and was looking directly at Vanya, who was slumped into one of those hard, plastic chairs against the wall.

“She’ll play the violin sometimes. She thinks it will help him. Stimulants and all that.”

Klaus blinked, finding himself unable to talk.

“The tall one? She won’t stop touching him.”

_Allison._

“She holds his hand, mostly. She has trouble letting go of it.”

She paused, looking over at Five. Allison was there beside him, looking uncharacteristically tired. Beaten.

“The blonde one reads to him quite a lot. I don’t think he understands any of it though. And....”

“I get it,” Klaus said hoarsely. “Please stop.”

The girl shrugged.

“You wanted to see him. Why are you still standing back here?”

_Because I’m scared._

Terrified, even.

He took a tentative step closer.

He sees the battleground. Men - _boys_ \- being shot up and left for dead in the name of their country.

Another step.

He sees the ER. Children screaming and parents crying. Blood spilling onto the floor, the drip of the IV, ghosts. There were so many ghosts in the ER.

Another step.

He sees Ben. Ben, who had never done anything wrong in his life. Ben who everyone loved and everyone confided in. Ben who was ripped apart from the inside by the very thing that made him special.

Another step.

He sees Five.

He wants so badly to touch him, to hold his hand like Allison was doing. He wants to say something to him. Anything.

That he was sorry.

That this was _his_ fault.

That everything was his fault.

“He’s going to die, isn’t he?” he whispered.

“He’s already dead.”

Klaus sniffled.

“He’s not dead. He’s _still_ here. Somewhere...”

The girl came close beside him.

“You see these machines? They are pumping air through his lungs. They are beating his heart for him. But his head? There is nothing left there.”

_Fuck you._

He couldn’t say it.

“....he was without oxygen for almost thirty minutes....”

“STOP!”

He was crying again, wasn’t he?

“ _Please_ ,” Klaus continued, softer this time. “Just....I get it, okay? I...I can’t...”

The girl sighed, taking his hand in hers.

The room dissolved again. The rush of colors and winds and sounds penetrated his psyche. Before he could utter a sound, Klaus found himself back in the warmth and sand.

Like he never left.

Now he really wanted to puke.

“What the fuck was that?” he cried, trying to quell the disturbance in his stomach. “How was I down there? Why am I back here?”

The girl sat down, looking infuriatingly unperturbed by Klaus’s meltdown.

“Was...that real? Is any of this real?”

He paused.

“Are.... _you_ real?”

“Does it matter?”

Klaus frowned.

“Yes,” he replied stonily.

“Why?”

“Because I want you to save him. Like you saved me.”

“I didn’t do anything to you, Klaus.”

“Yes you did! You...you sent me back! You said you didn’t like me so you....I....fuck...”

He cradled his head in his hands.

Nothing hurt but everything hurt. And he was so...fucking....tired.

“You saved me. You _have_ to be real. And you can save him. I...want you to save him.”

The girl’s smile faded. Something passed through her eyes that Klaus wasn’t able to comprehend.

“Why should I?” she responded.

_The audacity..._

“Because I’m asking you to?”

She began tracing shapes in the sand with her fingers, looking as though she was only half paying attention to the conversation.

“I _said_...”

“I heard you,” she cut in. “Your brother has killed hundreds of innocent people. Why should I save him?”

Klaus could feel a tear running down his face. The feeling was all too familiar now.

_Shit._

“He never enjoyed it. The killing. He...he’s not a bad person. He’s done bad things but...”

God, he was rambling again. The girl continued to trace in the sand.

_Fuck this._

“Are you even listening?” he hissed.

“You’ve failed to convince me why I should help him.”

“Because he’s my _brother_ , dammit!”

“And?”

_“And?”_

_“And what?”_

_“We shouldn’t be here, Five.”_

_His smaller brother smiled, quickening his pace._

_“Well we shouldn’t be watching movies or stuffing our faces with doughnuts during your mausoleum time either, yet here we are.”_

_“That’s not the same thing.”_

_They had wandered into a park, one of those cool ones that was made entirely of wood and had a rock wall that led up to the swirly slide._

_“What if dad catches us?”_

_“It’s three in the morning. We’re fine.”_

_“But...”_

_Five groaned._

_“We’re fine,” he repeated. “We gotta live a little, you know?_

_“Easy for you to say,” Klaus mumbled. “I walk around with people who aren’t living.”_

_He could see one now, a younger ghost. Four maybe? She had pigtails held together by red bows. She also had a neck that was bent in a way that necks weren’t supposed to go._

_Five’s gaze softened._

_“Do you know?” he asked. “How they died?”_

_“Sometimes. If it’s obvious.”_

_Bent-neck girl glanced warily at him._

_“Neat.”_

_Five teleported to the swing, kicking off from the mulch._

_“If I die I want it to be cool. Like....when you see me I’ll look like that melted face dude from Indiana Jones.”_

_“That’s not funny,” Klaus said, trying not to laugh._

_Five smiled, swinging higher in the air._

_“I just don’t want it to be boring, you know?”_

_“You’re anything but boring, Five. And you’re not gonna die.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“Cuz I won’t let you.”_

_He swung higher off the ground._

_“I don’t think you can control that.”_

_Klaus crossed his arms._

_“I can try.”_

_“Well, in that case....”_

_He jumped from the swing midflight, teleporting just before he hit the ground. Klaus gasped when he felt Five reappear beside him._

_“....I leave my life in your capable hands, lest you end up with my melty face for the rest of your days. God, I’d probably annoy the crap out of you.”_

_“You’re ‘not’ going to die, Five...”_

“He’s not here.”

Klaus blinked, realizing he had said the last part out loud.

The girl had stopped tracing in the sand, focusing her attention back on Klaus.

He was so fucking tired.

“Why should I save him?”

Was she still asking that? Did it even matter? What if... _fuck_ , what if this really wasn’t real?

_But what if it was?_

Everything hurt.

_“Why are you helping me?” Klaus asked._

_It was cold in the mausoleum. And dark. Five didn’t need to be here. Five didn’t need to steal blankets for him. Five didn’t need to be up in the middle of the night._

_The smaller boy frowned._

_“Isn’t that obvious?”_

_“Um....no?”_

_Five shook his head, stifling a laugh._

_“You’re my brother, you idiot. There is no place I’d rather be.”_

He was crying again.

“I want you to save him because he’s my brother....”

“.....you already said....”

“....and I _love_ him.”

Those words felt weird - _foreign_ \- to his mouth. He had said them once, back in 1968. To the man that had given him life. Purpose. Klaus wanted to love. He wanted _people_ to love. And for them to love him back.

He loved his brother.

He loved his bad-mouthed, murder inclined, apocalypse-obsessed sibling. The one who sat with him in the cold and dark. The one who talked him through his breakdowns. The one who _saved_ him from the brink.

The girl didn’t answer immediately. Klaus couldn’t tell what she was thinking, not really. She would look back to the ocean, then back at him, then back at the ground. It was almost as though he could see the cogs turning around in her head.

He was so tired.

“What does it feel like?” she finally asked.

“What does _what_ feel like?”

“Love.”

He thought she might be joking, but her face was genuine.

He thinks back to Dave. He could still see it so clearly....his body laying limp in his arms. His hands sticky and warm with the blood spilling out of his gut. He could feel his chest collapse. A hot, burning sensation that was only quelled with tears and the passage of time.

“It hurts,” he replied quietly. “Love hurts so fucking much.”

“Is that how you feel now?”

_Fuck you._

“Right now I feel like shit. My brother is down there _dying_ , or is he already dead like you told me? And what the fuck am I doing? Trying to explain _love_ to you?”

His breathes come out as gasps. It is _far_ too warm out here.

“Love is pain. That’s all it’s ever done for me. I’m in _pain_ right now because I love my brother. He’s brain-dead on a table because he cared enough to save my sorry ass from spending the night passed out in a sewer somewhere.”

Was he even breathing? He was still crying. _That_ he knew.

“You feel guilt.”

Klaus almost laughed. He was back in therapy and high of his ass listening to some bullshit being spewed by people he couldn’t give less of a crap about.

“ _That’s_ what you got out of this?” he hissed. “Yeah. I feel guilty. I’m tired, I’m in pain, and I feel guilty as hell.”

His world was shaking. He was...sinking? Floating?

The girl was still staring at him. There was something new in her face, some emotion that Klaus couldn’t comprehend.

“Why did you ask? About the love thing?”

The world tilted.

The girl blinked, finally taking her eyes off his.

“You’re waking up,” she said simply, tugging at the hem of her dress.

Klaus didn’t want to wake up. He _couldn’t_.

“You didn’t answer the question….”

The sand was hardening.

_No! No…._

He couldn’t look at Five again.

He was hearing voices. He could feel people touching him. His chest started to throb.

_Fuck. Fuck..._

“Please,” he begged. “I...I don’t know if you’re real or if any of this is real...but...”

Everything was blurry. His head was pounding.

“Please save him. _Please_.”

His vision went white. He was feeling things. He was feeling.... _everything_.

The white turned black. The sounds grew louder. He jumped.

“Klaus?”

His eyes snapped open to see... _fuck_ , was it Luther?

He didn’t care. He sat up.

“Klaus, you shouldn’t...”

“Fuck off.”

He didn’t want to be mean. But he was beyond the point of caring. He didn’t feel the pain anymore. He knew it was there, but it was so familiar that it almost felt as though it was part of him.

“Klaus!”

He ignored him. He stood up. He walked.

Luther was saying something. Saying _lots_ of things. Klaus didn’t care.

He turned the door handle.

“Klaus, stop....”

“I told you to _fuck off_ ,” he growled.

“Five is....”

“Dead?”

“How...?” Luther’s eyebrows furrowed.

“I _need_ to see him,” Klaus continued angrily. “Let me through.”

“You need to rest. You’ve been unconscious...”

“You think I don’t know that?”

He didn’t have time for this. He ducked under Luther’s giant arm through the door into the next room.

And he walked.

_“Klaus?”_

_“He’s awake?”_

_“How long...”_

It was as though he was on autopilot. He didn’t stop, he didn’t listen. He _couldn’t._

He had to get to Five.

_“....Klaus wait....”_

_“....he’s not....”_

_“....Five....”_

He grabbed his younger brother’s hand. His small, bony hand that was hanging limply off the bed.

Why was he so cold?

Five looked....better. No, not _better_. Better wasn’t the right word for it. With the tubes taken out, Five had regained some semblance of normalcy. As though that meant anything.

But he was stiff and cold. And his heart wasn’t beating. He wasn’t alive.

“Klaus?”

He could feel a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry....”

_Sorry? Why were they sorry?_

They didn’t kill Five.

He did.

“....we wanted to wait until you woke up, but....”

Was she still talking? He squeezed Five’s stiff hand even tighter.

“He was suffering, Klaus. The wound turned septic and....”

“ _Get out_.”

It was the only thing he could manage to say. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t let go of Five’s hand. He could hear more murmurs behind him.

_“I said get out!”_

The tears were streaming. His chest hurt. His head hurt. And he was so fucking tired.

They left, still whispering among themselves. Klaus could hear sobbing from the other room, but he couldn’t tell from who.

He just sat there.

He cried.

He cried until he couldn’t cry.

He cried until there weren’t tears left.

And then he cried again.

He looked back up at Five - _god, he’s so little_ \- and thinks he looks more at peace then Klaus had ever seen him. But what good did that do now?

He would have to let go. They would _make_ him let go.

He laid his head down, right next to Five. Why is it he slept for days but was so damn tired?

But Klaus still doesn’t let go of his hand.

He drifts.

He thinks back to their childhood. He can taste the hot chocolate that Five used to smuggle into the mausoleum. He could smell Griddy’s doughnuts when they would all sneak out at night. He could see Luke Skywalker blowing up the evil laser sphere in yet another sit through of Star Wars. He could hear Five’s soft breaths when he would fall asleep next to him in his bedroom during a bad storm.

He could hear his breaths now.

God, his head must still be fucked up.

Five wasn’t breathing.

Five was dead.

His siblings had turned the damn machines off, yet the room wasn’t quiet. Klaus raised his head, hand still gripping Five’s.

Five....was pale. He was cold and bony and bruised. His insides were punctured and infected. He had a hole in his side and an arm that was broken in several different places.

He was dead.

And his chest was moving.

No. That didn’t make sense. It didn’t compute. Dead people don’t breathe. They can’t breathe. Why....how was Five breathing?

He let go of his hand.

“Five?” he whispered.

_Dead people don’t breathe._

_Five was breathing._

_Dead people don’t..._

“Five?”

Klaus thinks he must have screamed it the second time, because a moment later four pairs of legs come scrambling into the room.

“Klaus! Are you...”

“....what is going...”

“....happened?”

_Dead people don’t breathe._

_Dead people don’t breathe._

“Guys? Is Five...”

“Oh my _god_ , is he...”

“....how?”

There was more crying, but Klaus couldn’t tell if it was coming from him or someone else. He took Five’s hand again and swore it felt just slightly warmer than before.

_Dead people don’t breathe._

_Five is breathing._

Klaus looked up.

“ _Thank you_ ,” he whispered, soft enough so no one else could hear him.

Somewhere, in some dimension outside the confines of space-time, a little girl smiles.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I finally write the "comfort" portion of this hurt/comfort story.
> 
> feat. hot cocoa and feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to thank everyone who's read/bookmarked/subscribed/kudo'd/commented on this fic, you guys are amazing!

Contrary to popular belief, Five wasn’t adverse to touch.

Sure, he didn’t easily acquiesce to the occasional hugs offered to him, but it was certainly better than denying them altogether.

And who could blame him?

He had spent 45 years in the sole company of cockroaches and mannequins. It took him a couple of months to recognize he might be - _slightly_ \- touch starved, and even longer than that to initiate any physical contact with his siblings.

But he didn’t _hate_ touch. It was just....unfamiliar, and Five was a being of routine and order.

He _was_ getting there. And luckily his siblings respected that.

At least, until now.

It seemed like every time Five opened his eyes, someone was _touching_ him. His hands, his cheeks, his hair....

He didn’t have the energy or willpower to tell them to stop, and to be honest....he didn’t particularly mind. Allison was the biggest offender, imprinting on him like a mother bear to make up for the time lost with her own daughter. It was useless at this point to tell her that he _wasn’t_ a child, because in her mind, he looked like one and that was close enough.

Vanya was around plenty as well, and Five could sometimes pick out the notes of her violin if he strained hard enough through the morphine. This, of course, notwithstanding the crying. It was constant and rather draining to deal with. Everyone was always _crying_.

Even after....was it three weeks now? Five had no way to keep track of time. He spent the first week unconscious, though Diego insisted he had woken up at least once. The second week went slightly better - he was able to make out some spoken words, the feel of fingers running through his hair, his hand being squeezed. He was even properly awake sometimes as well, though entirely unproductive. That was to be expected when Grace had to basically reconstruct his punctured insides and pump his veins full of antibiotics and corticosteroids.

In truth, Five had no idea how he was actually alive. In one of his more lucid moments he had asked Diego - _who was the most likely to actually give it to him straight_ \- who told him....well, _everything_. Five saw the charts and the scans, and it became increasingly clear that if the brain hemorrhage didn’t kill him, the septic shock should have.

Or _did_ , actually.

Five wasn’t stupid. He could see the guilt all over their faces. _They_ were the ones who turned the machines off. _The_ y were the ones who stopped his heart from beating.

He wanted to be mad, but couldn’t find it within him to be. It was an entirely logical decision, given he was brain dead in every sense of the word. And quite frankly, if the positions were reversed, he would have done the same thing. There was no way to predict that he’d be alive right now, and he could sense their guilt with every touch, every sob, every tear.

It was...draining.

It was _draining_ to tell them that it was okay. That he understands why they turned the machines off. That it’s not their _fault_. But in their eyes, they killed their brother and it’s all they saw.

It was into the third week now, and things were....going. Five didn’t want to say _better_ because better would imply some semblance of normality, but he was able to at least move around a bit. He still slept with an IV and was flush with some variety of painkillers, steroids and other drugs, meaning he spent most of the time high off his ass. His sleeping schedule shouldn’t even really be called a schedule at this point. But it had improved somewhat as he was now only sleeping 18 hours a day instead of 20+

Small victories, he supposed.

That didn’t make his life any less aggravating. He had tried to do some equations - _his form of stress relief_ \- but after an hour he could already feel his eyelids drooping, and before he knew it he woke up in bed with no recollection of having gotten there. Sometimes he was lucid enough to recognize that he was being carried - _most often by Luther and Diego_ \- and wanted to complain that he didn’t need to be carried to bed like a damn toddler, but this had become the new normal these days. When he was weaned off the drugs in the upcoming weeks he might be able to spend more than 2-3 hours awake at any given time, but for now he was stuck passing out at kitchen tables and living room couches.

In retrospect it was better than the alternative. No point in doing equations if you were dead.

_Dead._

How the hell wasn’t he dead?

It’s not that he wanted to be dead - _far from it_ \- but he had long since accepted this to be the outcome. From the time he woke up to a crushed windshield and a branch protruding from his side, he knew that the time he had left was limited. That he needed to stay alive long enough for Klaus to get rescued.

And of course, there was Klaus.

Klaus, that _fucking_ idiot.

It had been three weeks and Five hadn’t seen him once. It’s not like he _wasn’t_ around. Vanya and Allison made sure to tell him when Klaus had visited the infirmary - _which seemed to be often_ \- so why did it feel like Klaus was doing a rather impressive impersonation of Ben? Why is it he only visited him when he was knocked the fuck out?

Five couldn’t wrap his head around it. Sure, he knew Klaus felt guilty. This whole damn family felt guilty and he was sick of it.

 _He_ was the one who crashed the car, what was so hard to understand about that? So now he had four siblings who wouldn’t leave him the fuck alone for more than a minute without the fear of him keeling over, and he had another sibling who made it his mission not to be found at all.

Humans were utterly exasperating.

But Five certainly wasn’t one to give up so easily.

It was nearing the end of the third week when he was jolted awake by the sound of a chirp - Allison’s rather annoying alert from her phone. Five was finally allowed to sleep in his room, but his siblings were still insistent on babysitting him and he simply didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. The woman in question was asleep at his desk chair - _thank god the alert didn’t wake her up_ \- and Five slowly removed the IV from his arm.

Clutching the phone in his hand, he began to make his way across his room and out to the hallway. The act of walking was a challenge to say the least, which was why Five found himself increasingly isolated in his room or in the kitchen. Teleporting was a complete no-go, it would be weeks before he would even attempt.

And it sucked.

Father had hammered in his dislike for weakness, and unfortunately that’s all Five felt at the moment.

_Weak._

His legs felt like jelly and the drugs were impeding his ability to walk straight. He felt....floaty. Not in pain or anything - _he was too high for that_ \- but everything felt out of proportion to what they should have been.

He did eventually make it outside, fishing out a couple of crumpled up bills that he stole from the bottom of Allison’s handbag to give to some overworked teenager, and reentered the mansion with a paper bag in one hand and a cup tray in the other.

Technology was amazing. Back in 2002, mobile phones had antennas and shitty keypads. The commission still utilized tech from the 1950’s, so it was safe to say that Five was a bit behind on the times. Now phones were basically minicomputers and Diego once spent an afternoon explaining what an “app” was, much to Five’s chagrin.

 _“I’m fifty-nine_ ,” he said in exasperation. “ _Not dead_.”

That was before breaking his first phone out of anger after it failed to identify his thumbprint.

Regardless, ordering food directly to your house was awfully convenient, especially when it was three am and Griddy’s didn’t personally deliver. That didn’t actually help him when it came to _carrying_ it, however. Five was having enough trouble walking without the extra weight, but _dammit_ if he wasn’t going to make it to the living room. He could practically hear his father laughing at him from whatever hellhole he ended up in, which made him grit his teeth and try even harder not to collapse.

There was a reason for doing this. A reason for getting up this early in the morning. Klaus wasn’t going to come to Five, so Five would come to him.

His stupid, guilt ridden brother needed a damn kick in the ass for not visiting. He wouldn’t even sleep in his own room anymore as it was too close to Five’s. Instead he slept - _or at least tried to sleep_ \- downstairs on the couch. Of course, when Five entered the living room at three in the morning with a cup tray and a bag of doughnuts, it was safe to say that Klaus looked ready to die right there in front of him.

Not that he didn’t look like death already. The car accident wasn’t particularly easy on him either, he was still getting over a concussion and had several ribs that were still mending. But what worried Five was the fact that his brother didn’t look like he slept a wink in weeks.

Five could practically see Klaus’s jaw drop to the floor when he entered the room, in too much shock to utter a sound. Five walked - _limped?_ \- over to the couch as best he could, trying not to look like he would fall over with a slight gust of wind. It didn’t surprise him that Klaus was still up this late, in fact, he was _counting_ on it. No people meant no more distractions.

He placed the bag and cup tray on the table and eased the cup of hot cocoa out, relishing the warmth in his fingers. For the first minute, no words were said at all. Klaus looked ready to pass out at the sight of him. Five could see his mouth moving, as if he was trying to connect whatever it was floating around in his brain into an actual coherent thought. Five let the hot cocoa run down his throat as the warmth continued to spread from his chest down to his limbs.

Another minute passed before he finally put the cup down.

“I got jelly filled,” he said, motioning towards the bag. “Your favorite....for some reason.”

Klaus’s jaw snapped shut, his eyes wavering between Five and the coffee table.

“I personally go for the glazed,” he continued. “Griddy’s does glazed the best.”

More silence. Five was expected as much to happen, as disappointing as it may be. He wasn’t the best at understanding people, but it had occurred to him over the last couple of days that Klaus might as well be seeing a ghost every time his eyes landed on him.

It’s certainly what it looked like now. Five didn’t know how long Klaus was in that ice shack for while he was unconscious, but it must have been long enough that even the sight of him was probably scarring.

He sighed, leaning back into the couch.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I’m _not_ leaving though.”

Klaus’s eyes flickered back. His mouth opened again before quickly shutting.

 _Fine_.

If he was going to do this, then he was _damn well_ going to do this.

“I _know_ what it’s like,” he started, eyes never leaving Klaus’s. “When I was there, in the apocalypse....I saw you. I saw all of you. And...”

He trailed off briefly as the painful memory swept through him. Why did it still hurt to talk about after all this time?

“....I _still_ see it. Every time I close my eyes I see _you_. I see Luther and Diego and Allison and the pain it..... it never goes away, not really. You would know that most of all, wouldn’t you? I’m assuming Ben is here to testify for that.”

Five wondered if Ben was watching now. He....he missed Ben.

Fuck, this wasn’t what he had planned. Klaus was supposed to shoving doughnuts in his face by now and talking and being his usual idiotic self.

This family was fucked up.

 _He_ was fucked up.

He had prepared to talk about this and yet his voice was _still_ shaking.

“All I’m _trying_ to say is....”

What was he trying to say?

A single word kept flashing through his head.

_Guilt._

_Guilt._

_Guilt._

Klaus felt fucking guilty, just like everyone else in this family.

“I can’t stop you from feeling guilty. But I want you to know that I don’t blame you. I’ll _never_ blame you, do you understand? What happened wasn’t entirely my fault, but it wasn’t entirely yours either. And that’s fucking _life_ , Klaus. Shit happens and sometimes it happens to people you care about. Sometimes we can’t stop it from happening and we have to live with it. And it _sucks_. But....I mean, that’s why I’m _here_ , right? It’s why we have family to get through this shit together and it took me way too long to recognize that. I’m not about to let you disappear into whatever hole you go down when things go south.”

Yes, his voice was _definitely_ shaking.

Actually his whole body felt like it was shaking.

“And...and you’re a fucking idiot so stop avoiding me or I’ll stab you myself,” he added on weakly.

Was he the one rambling now?

Klaus looked...well, Five wasn’t quite sure. To be honest he was sure of _anything_ anymore. He stopped talking, trying to control his breathing, but was met with only silence from the other occupant of the room. At least, for the next few seconds.

“You’re crying.”

Five blinked, raising his head.

Did...Klaus just _talk_?

“What?”

“You’re crying,” Klaus repeated softly. “I...don’t think I’ve seen you cry before.”

 _Was_ he crying?

Five wiped at his eyes to find himself with wet fingers.

Damn, he _was_ crying. How long had he been crying for?

“Oh.”

“So you _are_ human after all.”

Five swore he could see something akin to a smile forming on his brother’s face.

“Fuck you, I’m not a robot.”

“Maybe not, but you’re high as a kite, short stack.”

No, Klaus was _definitely_ smiling now.

“I feel fine,” he mumbled, still feeling a floating sensation.

“Oh, with that shit in your veins I bet you feel _great_.”

_Great for you, maybe._

Klaus edged towards him, if only slightly.

“What?” Five sniffled.

“Can I....hug you?”

Well, at least he was asking. Five was _never_ asked. Then again, Five was never hugged.

Mostly.

But it never occurred to him to say no to Klaus’s request. He gave a slight nod and it was all it took for Klaus to reach over and practically smother him.

And.... _fuck...._

It was making him cry even harder. Five didn’t know _why_ he was crying this hard - _probably because of the drugs_ \- but he was utterly trembling, pressing his face against Klaus’s chest like a damn child as he leaned further into his embrace.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t _all_ due to the drugs. Five had to admit he had _problems_ and physical contact with others was a rarity, but he never wept so openly in front of other people before. It made him feel so _vulnerable_.

Klaus was crying too, he realized, which was probably to be expected. But Five was able to recognize that this contact wasn’t entirely for him, that Klaus needed to feel the warmth radiating from his body. He needed to know...to make sure that he wasn’t talking to a ghost.

Five squeezed just a bit tighter, dampening his brother’s shirt with his tears.

It felt.... cathartic in a way. Letting it all out. Not that he’d do it again - _especially_ in front of his other siblings, but maybe it’s what he needed.

“You were _dead_ ,” Klaus murmured, finally drawing away. “I saw you. We _all_ saw you.”

The drugs were definitely dulling his inhibitions a bit, but not to the extent where he would say “join the club” out loud.

Instead he settled on “I heard.”

Noting Klaus‘s confused expression, Five continued, “Diego, he... _uh_....showed me the scans.”

“.....oh.”

“I _should_ be dead. I’m....not entirely sure why I’m not.”

Klaus shrugged, averting his gaze.

“ _Weird_....” he mumbled.

Five narrowed his eyes, reaching for his cup of hot cocoa. Maybe if he were of sound mind, he would push Klaus on what the hell _that_ was about, but he really didn’t have the energy. He instead took another sip of his now lukewarm cocoa.

Klaus leaned over and grabbed the bag of doughnuts, finally digging in with much ferocity.

“Aren’t you going to eat any?” he asked with bulging cheeks and sugar-coated fingers.

Five rolled his eyes, cradling his drink.

“Still can’t eat solid foods yet.”

“That sucks,” Klaus grimaced, popping another munchkin in his mouth.

“I’m used to it.”

Silence once again permeated the room, and Five could feel Klaus pressing against him, as though he was afraid to pull away for even a second. A year ago this would have bothered him, but a lot had happened in a year.

Five could feel his eyelids growing heavy, and he had to shake himself awake more than once.

_Fucking drugs._

He had managed to stay awake for three consecutive hours once, but his body rewarded his hard work by keeping him under for almost two days after that. The sooner he was off this shit, the better.

“Hey, pee-wee?”

“Hmmm?”

“Are you.... _um_....I mean if you _want_ to go to bed....”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Five asserted, trying his best to look coherent.

“Ok, good.”

“Good?”

Klaus smiled, rising to his feet and crumpling the now-empty doughnut bag in his hands before tossing it in the fireplace.

“I’ll be right back.”

Five raised an eyebrow.

“Where are you going?”

Klaus’s smile widened.

“You’ll have to see. _Stay_ there.”

He didn’t give Five any time to respond before dashing up the staircase.

_Weirdo._

After a minute Five stood up as well, stretching his unresponsive muscles and trying to shake the drowsiness from his body. Klaus came back down in record time, slamming what looked like a DVD case on the now greasy and powder-sugar stained coffee table. Five glanced down, rubbing the fuzziness out of his eyes.

Was that.....?

“Holy shit,” he whispered. “Klaus you didn’t _seriously_....”

He recognized that case anywhere. His amazing, idiotic brother actually kept Five’s “borrowed” copy of _Attack of the Clones_. After seventeen years.

“....you amazing bastard. How’d you hide it from dad?”

“You think dad actually goes in my room?” Klaus snorted, looking rather smug. “It wasn’t _that_ hard, Fivey.”

“But why’d you keep it? After all this time?”

He could see Klaus’s smile falter slightly.

“I thought.....if you came back, that you’d want to see it. I mean, I was expecting you to show up eventually.”

Five could feel the tears again, cursing himself for being way too damn emotional of late.

“I promise,” he insisted. “I promise I didn’t mean to leave you. To leave any of you. I...I got stuck and I couldn’t....”

“I _know_ , Five,” Klaus cut in gently.

Five sniffled, picking up the DVD case. It was dusty sure, and smelled a bit like unwashed clothing, but it was utterly perfect.

“So....are we watching it or not?” Klaus asked, his smile making a reappearance.

This time his answer was immediate.

“ _Fuck_ yeah.”

It was lucky that Allison had put a television in the living room, a luxury that their father would never had allowed. It was even luckier that Diego had an ancient DVD player he kept in his old apartment already set up, though most family gatherings ended up with them using various streaming services. Perhaps it would have been easier to just watch the movie on Disney+ (which Allison has access to - _thanks Claire_ ), instead of spending fifteen minutes fiddling around for the proper input, but it just _wasn’t_ the same experience.

By the time they actually got the movie playing (or at least the ads), Five was struggling to keep his eyes open.

“You sure you can stay awake through this?” Klaus asked. “We can always watch another time.”

Five shot him a death glare.

“I’ve waited 45 fucking _years_ to see this movie, you bet your ass I’ll make it through.”

“Just asking, shorty.”

The sound of the trumpets finally hit the air and _dammit_ if Five wasn’t twelve years old again, sitting in the dead of night with Griddy’s takeout and Klaus by his side. This is how it should have been - no apocalypses and no commission, no getting stuck in Dallas and trying to save his idiotic siblings from whatever shenanigans they had gotten themselves into this time.

Just some droids, lightsabers, and a kick- ass soundtrack.

Klaus couldn’t say that this was his favorite thing to be watching, but he knew how happy it’d make his brother. Let it be known that it took all of twenty minutes before Five succumbed to the clutches of slumber, now slumped over with his head resting the larger Hargreeves’ lap. Klaus wound his arms around his little brother’s bony shoulders, drawing him closer. It was all too easy to look at him now and think back to several weeks ago as he bled out and struggled to breathe. He wasn’t struggling now. In fact, Five looked more at peace in his sleep than Klaus had ever seen him. That didn’t stop him from letting his fingers hover over the smaller boy’s carotid, or spending the next couple of minutes watching the rise and fall of his chest in case it stopped moving. He was even half tempted to wake Five up, but Klaus simply didn’t have the heart to do it. No matter, he’d finish the movie himself. _He_ had no problems staying awake. He would watch over him properly this time.

Of course, when Allison came downstairs an hour later to find _both_ of her brothers passed out on the couch, she decided it would be best to high tail it on out of there. If someone happened to question her on how she managed to reacquire her stolen phone that Five let slip through his lax fingers.... _well_....it was her secret to keep.

The forecast predicted another whiteout later on this week - it _was_ still winter after all. But for now, the coffee was brewing, her brothers were safe, and everything else in the world seemed unimportant by comparison. Sure, things weren’t _great_ at the moment, but maybe....just _maybe_ , they could end up being okay.

And for Allison, that was plenty enough to ask for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least Five slept through the infamous "sand" quote. Small blessings, amirite?


End file.
